A Deal of Blood and Honor
by Anonymous02
Summary: Two great generals of the Arc and Schnee families meet to determine the fates of armies. But medieval negotiations are not the only thing happening between them...
1. Chapter 1

**Warning: This fic is rated M for a** _ **reason**_ **.** **Chapter contains explicit sexual content** **.** **18+ readers** _ **only.**_

 **Note: All characters written with explicit material are 18+ for the purposes of this story.**

 **Idea inspired by and fic betaed by Shipper of Trashy Ships.**

* * *

The cold was blinding. White shrouded the entire landscape, giving it an ethereal quality to it. A woman trudged in the snow, her head obscured by by a hood from a cloak wrapped completely around her body that was even lighter than her surroundings, and her small body sinking her feet ankle deep in the snow. It crunched when she walked, slowly putting one foot in front of the other.

She saw a flag, buried halfway in the snow. The emblem of the Schnees, the snowflake, stitched across the flag. While the snowflake was the most prominent, she could barely make out the name of the specific squad of two dozen men it belonged to etched underneath the insignia. When she got within grabbing distance of the banner, there was a crack under her boot.

She lifted her foot, to find the sole coated in red. She looked where she stepped, finding a red mass of...something buried in the snow. She examined closer, and found the faintest outline of what used to be a man.

A voice behind her spoke in concern. "Lady Schnee-" He began before he was cut off by the woman holding her hand up in a fist for them to stop.

The small train of people behind her stopped.

Lady Schnee unsheathed her rapier, and used the blade to wipe off some of the copper colored mess. She looked up, farther across the snow, and saw dozens of her family's emblems buried in the snow, with their bearers likely suffering similar fates to the one at her feet.

With a sigh, she lifted her rapier across the white field. A line of glyphs stretched across the secret minefield of corpses.

The men behind her, clad in the finest armor and weapons of Atlas looked confusedly at the display.

"Well?" she said rather testily. "I can hold it for a few minutes, enough to get across most of the...battlefield."

The men still looked at the bridge of glyphs with apprehension.

Finally, Lady Schnee had lost all of her patience. With a huff she took a step onto the line of glyphs and began to walk across the field on her own, not even bothering to look back to see if her own men followed her.

* * *

Since the snow was blocked by the trees overhead Lady Schnee walked through the forest quickly.

A voice popped up from beside her "My Lady?"

She shifted her eyes to the side slightly to take in a heavily armored woman wielding a massive warhammer. "Yes?"

The barbarian almost seemed concerned as she walked. "Don't you supposed you should slow down?"

Lady Schnee kept walking forward at the same pace. "And why, pray tell, should I do that?"

The large woman's armor clinked as she rubbed her head sheepishly "Um, because keeping this pace with your...small stature...isn't sustainable?"

At this Lady Schnee did stop, and glared at the woman. "I'm quite capable of sustaining this speed for several hours, my endurance is hardly in relation to my appearance."

"Well yeah, but you also lost the rest of your retinue a while back."

The Lady looked back to find that, indeed, apart from the large barbarian, nobody from her protective group was following them. She sighed in annoyance.

"Let me guess, they're still trying to cross the battlefield?"

"Yep!" The armored one of the pair said cheerfully. But she continued in a slightly more serious tone. "So are we going to wait for them?"

Lady Schnee narrowed her eyes at the forest behind them.

"No."

She began to walk again in her original direction as she continued talking.

"We need to get there by sundown."

The chipper voice confirmed that her sole protector was still by her side.

"Really? Why? Weren't we fighting just hours ago? What's the rush?"

Lady Schnee scowled again. "That's exactly the rush. Right now, their forces are uncoordinated, troops haven't had the time to be herded into position by us or our adversaries. We need to strike while the iron is hot, before everyone in this valley gets too set into their mindsets and positions."

The woman in armor paused for a second as she considered that. But before she could say anything, she noticed a flag sticking out of the ground, this time with two golden crescents on it instead of the white snowflake that they saw before.

"But isn't it, you know, _dangerous_ to walk up to enemy territory without any protection?"

The woman in armor glanced around, noticing the vague shapes of people in the trees. More and more of them appeared as she and Lady Schnee walked deeper into the jungle. The woman ahead stopped when they could see the wooden palisades of a camp nearby. She spoke softly to her companion. "What's your name, knight?"

"Nora, Nora Valkyrie." The woman in armor said quietly, as if to not disturb the shadowed warriors around her.

"Well Nora, this is _extremely_ dangerous, so I'm going to need you to trust me, okay?"

Looking around, Nora really didn't feel like she had many other choices. "Yes My Lady."

"Good. Take off your helmet." The Valkyrie complied, cautiously, lifting her helm to reveal a shock of ginger hair, and a befreckled face.

The Lady Schnee smiled slightly, and lowered her own hood, revealing hair whiter than the snowfall around them, tied in a slight bun at the top that nonetheless cascaded out of it to her chest.

She shouted to the surrounding warriors and to all within the forest to hear.

" _I am Lady Weiss Schnee! Second in line to the Throne of Nidavellir! Commander of the 5th Legion of The Holy Atlesian Empire! We have faced each other in battle today, and you have fought honorably!"_

Every warrior who was in the area was paying attention to her now. It was good to know that her title at least commanded some respect from the natives, even if it was more fear and anger than awe like she was used to. But no matter, now to the reason she came here.

" _I have come to negotiate our surrender!"_

* * *

She and Nora were led through the camp. She was frankly a little insulted that neither of them were blindfolded, but she took the opportunity to take mental notes on the layout of the camp.

They stopped when they got to a ramshackle tent in the midst of the barracks. A woman with a red cloak was walking out of the tent.

"Excuse me!" Weiss said to the woman.

She stopped, and looked at the foreigner curiously.

"More of my retinue are coming, please make sure that your guards don't attack them."

The woman in the red cloak smiled softly. "Don't worry, I'll make sure that our people don't kill your men on sight."

Weiss scoffed at her. "Please, that warning was for your your people's benefit, not ours."

The woman in red chuckled. "Sure princess, keep telling yourself that. Head on it, the general's waiting."

With a huff, Weiss strode forward, but while she hadn't noticed Nora on her heels the entire time, the woman in red didn't.

"Hey!" Nora exclaimed as the surprisingly strong woman stopped the knight in her tracks.

"Lady Schnee _only_." She said menacingly as she held what looked like a scythe in her path.

Weiss could see Nora reaching for her hammer, but a quick shake of her head had Nora slowly putting her hand back.

"I'll be fine." she said as comfortingly as possible to her bodyguard. However, for the next sentence, she fixed her eyes on the reaper that blocked her.

"If any of my people are killed, this camp will burn by tomorrow."

The reaper smirked. "You can try, princess."

She lowered her weapon and grabbed Nora's shoulder, turning her around back towards the edges of camp "Come on Valkyrie, we need to stop my people from murdering your people." she said as they walked away.

Weiss breathed deeply before she opened the flap to the tent.

* * *

She looked around the tent, and saw a tall woman with a mane of blonde hair talking to a disheveled man trying to shove a large amount of parchment into a bookshelf without it falling over.

Weiss drew upon her admittedly limited knowledge of the Arc clan from intelligence briefings. Their whole bloodline had once served Atlas as nobles and knights, but they had chosen to sully their blood with the common folk, which led to their defection long ago to Vale.

As such, there were many Arcs roaming around Remnant, but the only ones _really_ known to people of her class were the ones on the front. The conspicuously blonde females were terrors on the battlefield, with one line of the Arc clan in particular earning victories that would've earned them many titles and lands had their family stayed in Atlas. But now they only earned the contempt of traitors, and, she'll admit, the respect gained by worthy adversaries of Atlas.

She didn't know which Arc she was meeting, but she supposed that she would be forgiven for asking, after all, it's not like she was the only Schnee on the battlefield, and Arc fertility was almost as legendary as their battle prowess.

With that knowledge in mind, she waited for the Arc to finish her conversation with the man who was desperately trying to keep the parchment from falling.

She busied herself with looking around at her surroundings. The tent was...cozy. None of the finer accoutrements of nobility that lined her own command center, no silk rugs, no desks made of fine oak, but she had to admit that it was a warm atmosphere. She found herself quite liking the wooden smell and the literal warmth of the place given that they had a furnace in the edge of the tent.

Finally, Arc looked like she was wrapping up her conversation with the servant boy. Then the blonde woman...left? It was rude to keep her waiting, but Weiss reasoned that perhaps it was a power play.

She stood there, her cloak still tightly wound around her, waiting for her to come back. After a minute, she began to get annoyed. How dare Arc stand her up like this. Weiss realized that Arc was the victor in their engagement earlier that day, but even that did not mean she should leave a guest alone.

After another minute, Weiss had hit her breaking point. The servant boy in the room still hadn't noticed she'd come in, so she cleared her throat loudly to get his attention.

"Excuse me?!" She said, startling the boy to falling over into a mess of parchment and scrolls.

"What is the meaning of this!" She said at the boy who struggled to respond.

"I'm sorry? What-"

"I was informed that I was going to speak to the leader of this army who had bested me, to discuss terms-" she continued

"Yes, I mean-" he tried to interrupt before she steamrolled over him.

"But then she leaves before speaking a word! The rudeness of you Valean plebeians, is it really so hard for Arc to show some manners and at least acknowledge I'm here!"

"Wait, 'she'? What are you, ohhhhh-" the boy said quickly as he rummaged in the pile of parchment on the floor to find something.

"I ask to be brought to the general, to my adversary, to talk, woman to woman, in a civilized manner before we escalate this conflict to something neither of us can win, but no, she leaves without a word!"

"Umm, I think I know the problem with your assessment-" The boy said as he looked around before tilting his head to look in the space under the bookcase.

"Ugh, I thought that I could, at the very least, get to know the person I fight, but apparently that's too much."

"Aha! The man said as he gripped the handle of a blade under the shelf.

As he pulled it out Weiss's hand flew to her rapier so she had it pointed at the man's gullet on reflex before he could raise his own sword. "What manner of assassination is this!" she said to him viciously.

"Ah! Not a trick! Not an assassination!" he said quickly.

He cowered behind the sword in fear, and Weiss faintly registered that while it was pointed at her, the sword was still in its sheath. Both stood in silence before the disheveled and scared man broke it. "Listen, just calm down, okay? I'm going to do something to **my** sword, and it should explain everything."

She was still, and silent, before she nodded at him. He slowly reached up, and pressed a hidden button on his sheath, which expanded into an upside down heater shield with the sword still attached.

Weiss was...confused to say the least. She didn't understand what was so special about a shield that expanded. And the shield didn't have any markings that indicate anything. All that was on the shield was two upside down golden...crescents.

The understanding dawned on her just as the man, who she finally realized had dirty blonde hair, spoke again.

"Heh, yeah, I'm...kind of the general around here." He said sheepishly "The name's Jaune, Jaune Arc."

* * *

Weiss gradually lowered her weapon, and Jaune did the same, collapsing the shield and laying it down on an errant table. By the time she had put the rapier into her holster, she had composed herself and was analyzing her opponent now that he was closer and was no longer buried in parchment.

He was...tall, to say the least, standing a whole head above her in way that made her frankly feel uncomfortable. His blonde hair was scraggly, and framed his face in a way that brought out the blue in his eyes.

Across from her, Jaune was thinking something similar. His eyes were drawn to her hair and cloak, before they studiously moved back to her face, where she was...observing him.

He coughed quickly, gesturing to the Atlesian royal to take a seat. She unclipped the front of her cloak, revealing an Atlesian battle uniform, a white suit and pants that would be more in place on a noble at a formal ball than in a warzone. From the way she moved, Jaune could tell it hindered her movements, but it was clearly functional enough to fight in, and knew that should he attack her, she had a significant chance of skewering him on her rapier.

Weiss on the other hand also noticed much about her fellow general. He was wearing cloth clothing and a light leather vest. Not tough enough for combat, and most certainly not warm enough for the winter outside, but it seemed as though he was comfortable here in the heat of the tent in a way she was not. A quick glance around her revealed a limited suit of armor and warmer coats nearby.

She slowly sat down, moving her cloak so that it flowed around her and the chair that was offered.

"So…" Jaune started off nervously. "...I was told you wished to talk with me?"

"Yes." Weiss said curtly "I am Lady Schnee, Commander of the 5th Legion of The Holy Atlesian Empire, and I am the commander-"

"Wait, _you're_ Lady Schnee?" he said in stunned disbelief.

Weiss was taken aback. A few months of combat, and she had already gained such a reputation, she must have made quite the impression on-

"You know, I really thought you'd be taller, I just can't believe it, I beat _the_ Winter Schnee in combat. Shit... "

And like that Weiss's expression was back to giving away nothing. "You didn't."

"What?" Jaune said awkwardly as he was coming back from his celebratory mood.

"I am Lady _Weiss_ Schnee, Second in line to the Throne of Nidavellir. Commander of the 5th Legion of The Holy Atlesian Empire." She stated haughtily.

"...you any relation?"

Her expression, if possible, became even more stony, though Jaune would swear he saw her eye twitch. "She's my elder sister."

"Oh."

Her lips pulled back into a sneer. "Don't worry, you weren't the only one disappointed. I thought I had lost to a _real_ Arc."

Jaune was never good at hiding his feelings, and his face darkened just a shade. He cleared his desk of papers, sweeping them to the floor, before speaking. "Now, what is it you wished to speak of so desperately that you came here _in person_. Grimm?"

A small shiver came through Weiss at the mention of the dark creatures, but she recovered before Jaune took real notice. "No. Even though your camp could use a good culling, our scouts haven't reported any spikes in activity. Yet."

Jaune bristled at the remark, but simultaneously relaxed slightly. She understood the feeling. The valley they inhabited was very small, and the mountains prevented the Grimm from entering most directions, but the cramped area also made a large Grimm incursion a problem that they might not survive alone.

Jaune's voice shook her out of her thoughts. "So what's so important?"

"Do you have a map of the valley?"

Jaune rummaged in the pile next to his desk, and pulled out a large diagram of the valley they inhabited. Weiss grabbed a piece of charcoal nearby, and drew circles over various portions of the map, some large and some small.

She pointed to the little circles she had made. "These are the civilian farms that inhabited this valley before we fought in here."

She pointed to the large circles she had made. "These are the granaries that stored their grain for the winter."

She then drew large arrows across the map, that intersected with all of the granaries and the civilian farms. Jaune's eyes widened slightly "And these-"

"Are our troop movements."

She looked up at Jaune, recovered from her surprise at his quick deductions, and continued. "As you can see, our armies wiped out most of the valley's food supply with our fighting, and there are still several weeks left in winter."

"And we're both out of food."

She looked at him curiously again. This time he noticed.

"We've had to move camp twice in two weeks to get a better position, we lose food each time we do that. And after we decimated you-" Weiss's hand clenched with white knuckles at his words but Jaune continued.

"-you probably moved your camp back in the valley to do the same. So we're both out."

She breathed once and responded in a monotone voice "Correct."

"So what is your plan? I'm assuming Atlas hates cannibalism as much as us, and that you wouldn't come here without one."

Weiss was beginning to lose patience with this blonde boy, and decided to spit out her part before she said something she regretted. "There's one option, there's one major granary that neither of our forces have sacked yet as far as we're aware. It's large enough to supply both of our armies." She said as she drew one last circle outlining it.

Jaune looked the position of the granary, before nodding. "Ahh...so that's why you came to us."

Weiss suspected he knew already, but she had to make sure, this was a matter of life and death after all, and there would be no room for error. "Yes. It's marginally closer to your camp, but quite frankly, it's practically equidistant from ours and yours. If we fight over that grain, we lose _everything_. None of us are getting out of this alive if it's destroyed from us squabbling over it."

Arc looked pensive. "And your solution?"

"We divide it." Jaune raised an eyebrow at that. After all, Schnees weren't exactly known for sharing.

"Really?"

"Really."

"How do you propose to do that exactly?"

Weiss's answer came without hesitation. "Individual scouting parties of our most trusted troops sent into the town, both of our forces staying a quarter mile distant. Close enough to intervene, far enough to avoid conflict."

Jaune was silent, so Weiss added onto her plan. "It's either that, or allowing fate to decide which, if any, of us walk out of this damn valley alive."

Her serious look gave Jaune pause, before he slowly nodded. "I agree."

Weiss let out a breath that she felt she had been holding in for a _very_ long time.

"So, how do we share it."

Now that was a question Weiss was much happier to deal with.

"30-70, my people's favor."

Jaune, who had previously looked more contemplative at the thought, fell out of his chair at the suggestion. Weiss stood up slightly at the sudden movement.

He picked himself up, grumbling, and stumbled to his feet. "I'm sorry you want us to do WHAT?"

Weiss was off-put by the sudden volume change, but she stood up straight to face him in the face. "You heard me, 3 out of every 10 bales of grain will go to your troops, the rest will go to my people."

"That's _insane_ , in what realm of Remnant is that fair!" Jaune's volume was increasing, but Weiss was determined.

"The realm where I am trying to save _lives!_ " She practically shouted at him.

"That plan WILL. KILL. US." He shouted back.

"IT WILL SAVE US!" She screamed at him.

" _Hey, you can't go in there!"_ they both heard from outside.

" _Stay the fuck out of my way, reaper, my Lady is in there and she's in trouble."_

" _If you knew what's good for you, you would not take another step forward."_

" _I don't need an attack dog of Vale barking in my way, if you want me, have at thee!"_

Inflamed by the argument, but both realizing what was about to happen just outside their tent, the two generals mutually walked out of the tent to see Nora and Weiss's late retinue squaring off against the reaper and the blonde from earlier with a group of foot soldiers backing them up.

"What is the meaning of this!" Jaune bellowed at his men. Weiss started at the tone from the meager man, but waited for him to finish.

Nobody spoke, so Jaune glared at the two women Weiss had met.

"Ruby? Care to explain?"

The reaper, who had seconds ago been ready to disembowel someone, looked sheepish as she replied to the man.

"We...heard you in distress. Sir."

Jaune sighed. "We were arguing over a treaty, a treaty that would be null and void if you _killed_ the bodyguards of the person we're making a treaty _with._ " Ruby looked suitably chastised, while the rest of the soldiers milling about at least had the sense to look sheepish.

Weiss decided to take her initiative as well. "Nora!"

"Yes my Lady?"

The Valkyrie looked like she was sheepish too which confirmed Weiss's suspicion that she had started the fight, but Weiss decided to hammer the point on home. "We are _guests_ here. If we do not treat our hosts well, they will likely retract their hospitality, and we _can't_ afford to do that. Understood?"

She threw in a quick nod of her head to the surrounding warriors that massively outnumbered them, and Nora's paling face looked like she finally realized exactly how much jeopardy she had placed them all in by riling them up.

But Weiss realized that she needed to do more to keep her men in line. She looked up at the dark sky, moon high above, and mentally guessed the time.

"Alright, I have a new order, under no circumstances, should any of you enter the command tent until sunrise, understood?"

Nora and the others in her guard looked puzzled, so she decided to define it more clearly.

"These negotiations are delicate, complex, and _loud_. I _cannot_ make a deal if I have to worry you all will come barging in if I raise my voice louder than the cry of a baby. So swear it that regardless of what you hear in there, you _will not_ _interfere_."

Her retinue appeared apprehensive, but she wasn't going back into there unless she knew that she wouldn't be interrupted. "Swear it!"

Finally, her men relented and mumbled oaths under their breaths swearing to not interfere till sun-up.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jaune speaking with his people.

"They will not interrupt?" She said once he got within hearing distance.

"No. Nobody's barging in until sunrise. Since you put that restriction on your people, I figured treating mine the same is _only fair._ "

She could sense a not so subtle dig at her, but she ignored it in favor of continuing to walk to the tent.

* * *

"Is it warmer in here, or is it just me?" Weiss said as she re-entered Jaune's tent.

"It's the furnace" Jaune said as he walked to his desk. "It's too hard to turn it off and back on again. I lit it when you arrived, and even with the snow outside, the heat is going to keep building." He gestured to a coat rack she hadn't noticed that was near the entrance. "Please, feel free to take off your cloak, it may be a bit too warm, but I promise we won't freeze this night."

Weiss paused in hesitation, but she finally unclasped her cloak and placed it on the rack.

She also undid the top button on her uniform, trying to cool herself off, before seeing Jaune out of the corner of her eye taking off his vest and heavy cloth shirt and changing to a lighter cloth shirt. She caught a flash of ribs and taut muscle.

She undid a few more buttons on her uniform.

Jaune grabbed a bottle from his desk and two glasses, pouring out a generous amount for both of them. To Weiss's curious eyebrow tilt, he responded "Whiskey. I need it after dealing with particularly rowdy incidents."

Weiss still looked skeptical. "I would advise you be careful of dependence on drinks. It's not an easy taste to get rid of." But nonetheless, she grabbed the glass and downed it whole, and Jaune dutifully refilled it.

"Now that we have privacy, where were we Lady Schnee?" Jaune said they stood awkwardly next to his desk.

Weiss raised an eyebrow, and tilted the glass she was drinking from to the map she had drawn circles on.

"Right. Food distribution. 70-30 is absurd."

Weiss took a deep sip of the amber liquid. This was going to be a long argument. "My forces are larger."

Jaune's face darkened, and his back straightened slightly in annoyance, bringing more of his intimidating height to bear.

"Furthermore, my troops are more diversified. We have many classes and many work harder, and thus have higher food consumption than your people." Weiss continued, oblivious to the effect of her words

"Not that it's done much against us." Jaune muttered into his glass.

Like that, Weiss was uncomfortably close to him. He could could count the strands of hair on her, she was so close, but instead opted to focus on her eyes and equal the glare she was giving him.

"I'm sorry, what was that, _Mr_. Arc?" She said slowly.

It might've been the heat, or just annoyance at a dig at his position, but Jaune felt more confrontational than usual.

"I was giving an observation." He said in a monotone designed to irritate.

Weiss kept up the glare for a few seconds, before remembering that she was ostensibly supposed to be negotiating.

"Well battle prowess is _not_ related to their consumption of food. It falls to the number of troops."

Jaune's expression tightened slightly. "And how many troops _do_ you have?" He said in curiosity.

Weiss froze.

"You know how many troops I have Lady Schnee. Well, I suppose I could have another camp nearby, but we both know that is not likely. And while I was able to get the guards to blindfold the rest of your retinue, _you_ got a fairly good look on the way here before. But I don't know _anything_ about your troops."

"This is a small valley, you've seen my troops." She said quickly.

"Except...have we?" Jaune said with a shit-eating grin as he laid down the glass he was holding. "We've fought you. But in a small valley, you can only push so many troops forward at once before men are more of a nuisance than they're worth. We can't say for certain we know how many Atlesians are camped in this valley"

Weiss knew where this was going, but stewed in her annoyance at the flaw in her logic.

"So we can't accept any number of troops you give, much less your food distribution percentages." Jaune was on a roll and kept going, "In fact, how do we even know you have any men left, for all we know, you're trying to bluff your way into here."

"Excuse you?!" Weiss interrupted indignantly, slamming her glass into the table. "Do you know how many risks I took coming here? You slaughtered a large portion of my forces naught twelve hours ago! Any other commander would've run screaming, but instead I put my own reputation, my own fucking _life_ on the line by coming here! Do you know why I took such a great risk?!"

Jaune was taken aback by her sudden outburst, and couldn't form a response as Weiss continued, advancing on him, finger in his face, making him step back slightly until he could feel his own desk under his ass.

"I came here because I have _men_ to feed!" she practically screamed. "Men who will die, if they are lucky, by the sword of a comrade or an enemy, and if unlucky, from their own stomachs eating themselves from the inside out! _That_ is the reason I came here, not some half cocked bluff to _steal_ from you!"

She didn't calm down after her outburst, but she did take a step back so that she was not straddling the enemy general on his desk, and her eyes dropped from his face.

Jaune, to his credit, was looking apologetic after his remark, and he spoke softly with his next words. "Lady Schnee, I would like to remind you that you are _not_ the only one putting themselves on the line here. My reputation could be sullied if this meeting goes wrong. Most other commanders would've captured or killed you by this point, and I hope that my hospitality at least tells you that I do care about the lives of everyone in this valley."

Weiss looked him in the eyes once more, with a flicker of what might be hope in her heart, but the face that greeted her could've been cut from stone, it was so expressionless.

"That being said," Jaune continued more imperiously. "When it comes to how many mouths you have to feed, the only thing that we know about your forces, is that there are significantly fewer of them now than there were yesterday."

* * *

The slap was quick, and painful for both involved. Jaune's face had a red handprint that was being wiped away by aura, while Weiss's hand was throbbing from the contact with Jaune's face.

But as Weiss remembered having to wade through the snow over a field of the corpses where a great many of her proud knights had stood, she couldn't feel any hint of remorse over the action.

Jaune was slightly staggered, but he stood his ground as the pain began to recede.

"70-30" he croaked out.

"What?" Weiss said as she waited for her own pain to dull.

"Seven of every 10 bales of grain are mine, three are yours."

"And what, pray tell, is your reasoning for that distribution?"

Jaune sneered at her. "To the victor goes the spoils."

Any anger that Weiss had lost in the intervening seconds flared right back with a vengeance and she punched Jaune in the gut. As he wheezed and was doubled over, she spoke in a very monotone voice as she turned away from Jaune.

"Counter-offer. 60-40. Atlas's favor."

That was a more equal distribution with her estimates of their opponent's troop numbers, and with her own troop requirements.

"No. I don't know how you got number that but I've not just won a great victory in war to squander the peace with ludicrous deals."

Weiss whirled around to confront him but Jaune caught one of her arms hanging by her side, and slammed her none too gently to the desk, pinning her scant inches from where they had placed their whiskey glasses. She could feel his arms wrapped around her neck, and his chest was applying pressure to her as well, adding his not inconsiderable weight to the already uncomfortable sensation of her breasts being pressed into the hardwood of the table.

She couldn't turn her head, and as such, couldn't tell what he was doing until Jaune's hot breath was in her ear.

"50-50. Final offer. Five of every ten bales of grain are mine, five are yours. Nobody can dispute that as fair."

Weiss...smiled at that. It was a vicious, victorious, strained smile, but it was a smile of a plan finally done.

She would have never walked into this camp without checking the size of the granary. Weiss knew that her troops would have some tight belts, but it was an acceptable, and mutually beneficial solution. And now that he had finally suggested it, the deal was as good as done.

She nodded, which turned into more of just a twitch of her head given how tightly Jaune held her, but he appeared to understand, and loosened his grip to let her go.

"50-50?" He said cautiously.

"50-50." She said as she held out her hand.

He grasped it firmly. "May this deal let both of our troops survive this damn winter."

"Hear hear." She said softly as they pulled apart.

Then, there was an awkward silence. Weiss, now that the adrenaline had worn off, began to take stock of herself and Jaune. Jaune was slouched with his ass leaning against his desk, while Weiss was standing a few feet away.

More specifically, she could see that he had a sheen of sweat on his face and arms from their fight, and the heat of the furnace. Sniffing herself, she found that while pinning her, he had actually pressed into her so hard, she could actually detect his scent on her. And while it might have been the whiskey in her talking, she wasn't...entirely offended by it.

As the seconds ticked on, she found herself getting lost just looking at his features, in his hardened, yet still young face. Her eyes were drawn to the way his scraggly blonde hair cascaded around his face.

Her senses felt heightened, she could count the twitches his muscles made when his hands fidgeted at the desk's edge. She began to feel something unfamiliar in her stomach, something she was not used to. An ache in her chest that made her feel like she was missing something.

She suspected that she knew what the feeling was, but she needed to test it.

Jaune was the one who broke the silence, turning from Weiss, who he'd been...admiring...and coughed for attention before speaking. "Well, if that's it, then I guess there's no point in staying in my quarters all night, I can have my aides escort you back to your camp-"

Jaune's back was to Weiss, so he didn't notice her surreptitiously pouring herself a healthy amount of whiskey, and down it in one gulp. Jaune turned to face her in the middle of his sentence and found himself being dragged down before finding Weiss's lips crashing into his.

Her tongue ran roughshod over his teeth, delving deep into his mouth before playfully wrestling with the tongue that already inhabited the mouth.

They broke away for air, both of them panting heavily, and Jaune's arousal beginning to stir in his crotch.

"Fuck." Weiss said as she stood with a silver trail of saliva between their lips. She had felt the ache fade when she had locked lips with Jaune. It figured that the first time she got feelings for someone it had to be a sworn enemy of Atlas.

"Weiss?" Jaune said in confusion.

"Fuck. Why the fuck did it have to be you of all people?" she muttered to herself.

Jaune was understandably a little annoyed with what Weiss was saying. He couldn't tell what she was going on about, but he understood that he was not exactly well-received in whatever thoughts she had. So he decided to interrupt them with another kiss.

"Of all the rotten, no good, idiots to fall for I- _mmmpph_ "

This time, Jaune was on the offensive, but Weiss recovered quickly, and soon their mouths were writhing mess. When they released each other for air this time, Jaune began to trail burning kisses down her collar, and stopped at her dress uniform. His lips waited at her collarbone, running his teeth over the expose his skin, while his fingers waited at the rest of the still in place buttons on her dress uniform, waiting for Weiss to give him a signal for him to continue.

Weiss drove one of her slender fingers into the waist of his pants to grab his half-hard cock, sending a shudder through his body.

That was all the signal Jaune needed, and with a roar he tore open her dress uniform, with buttons littering the floor in his wake. Exposed in front of him were Weiss's breasts, the nipples pointing out in arousal like daggers.

He dove to her breasts, sucking gently on them like a newborn babe, before he heard Weiss make a noise.

It wasn't a moan, but more of a sound of dismissal. As if everything he was doing wasn't good enough. On the heels of the sound, Weiss's voice came from above her "I can't fathom what is possessing me to do this if you're going to be so tame…"

Jaune growled at her in response. "Let me show you…"

He sucked harder, and bit lightly into her areolae, running his tongue over the nipple as he pulled back the sensitive nub, and ground it slightly between his incisors. His quick fingers twisted the other one, rolling it between them to increase contact.

This time he did get a moan out of her, and in return, Weiss trailed her fingers up his thickening shaft, and out of his pants.

She could feel another growl from Jaune through her chest as her fingers lost contact with his cock, but she quickly put them back to work undoing his belt.

In the meantime, Jaune had switched nipples, and his mouth was working on the other on, earning another round of heavy breathing from the woman beneath him.

Weiss finally undid his belt, and his pants fell to the floor, causing Jaune to let go of her nipple, and stand up to take off his shirt.

It revealed a toned body, not a blacksmith's, or a carpenter's body, but also not the scrawny torso of Atlesian royalty that she was used to seeing. It was the body of a soldier, with taut cords under a thin layer of skin.

By contrast, Jaune finally got a good look at Weiss's uncovered top, and was mesmerized by her own musculature. Jaune had already suspected that Weiss wasn't an armchair general, but this only proved it with her exposed torso looking almost as strong as his.

Jaune, panting in arousal, found his gaze drifting downward to her breasts and they traced the pale orbs in fascination and lust before roaming even lower, gliding over her abdomen, but stopping at Weiss's still clothed lower body.

Weiss found herself in a similar state, breathing heavily as her own eyes stopped on Jaune's erect cock. It throbbed with blood, and she would swear that she could make out the veins pulsating in the turgid rod. She couldn't tell how large it was specifically, but she felt a burning deep in her core that meant that whatever the size, she wanted to take _all_ of it.

Jaune took a step forward, but Weiss halted him with a raised hand. She backed up towards his desk, sitting down on it without dropping her arm or ever breaking eye contact.

She pulled her hand down calmly and hooked her fingers from both hands into the edges of her pants. Weiss dragged them, and the slip of cloth she used as undergarments, down torturously slowly.

A white tuft of hair peeked through first, then her pussy was exposed slowly. The pink lips positively bleeding with lubrication at being penetrated in the near future.

Weiss finished dragging her pants down to her feet, pulling off them, her socks, and her combat boots in one fell swoop, and sighing in relief at finally having gotten the heavy things off.

She heard a groan from Jaune, and she could see him grabbing his shaft tightly in one of his hands. She smirked, seeing how his face was red and how his cock practically _begged_ to be buried in her.

Weiss shrugged the shoulders of her Atlesian dress uniform, and drifted her left hand to her quivering snatch. One of her light fingers slowly dragged itself over her slit, and her heart rate began to pound in her throat. She started off agonizingly slow, but began to pick up speed, dragging it across herself again, over and over again, faster and faster, before stopping.

She began to rub just inside of herself, going in circles slowly around her clitoris, enjoying the drawn out nature of her pleasure, before returning to dragging her finger across her aching pussy. This time she started off fast, pushing and pulling her finger at a breakneck pace, making herself bite her lip to keep from coming, and in her haze of pleasure, took a quick peek at Jaune to see if he was enjoying the show.

For his part, he looked like he was on the verge of coming, hand gripping his rod like a vice to keep from jerking himself off, precum dribbling out of his cock and onto his fingers. She could see him desperately trying not not orgasm with his face screwed up into stoic determination, and a devious smirk came onto her face.

She looked Jaune straight in his eyes, and pumped her hand over her pulsing pussy even faster, her hand becoming a blur. She opened her mouth, and the pain subsiding from her bitten lip coincided with a pulse pounding orgasm _ripping_ through her body. Her eyes never left Jaune as she let out a luxurious moan that reached to the depths of Jaune's cock.

Against his own wishes, Jaune's own harrowed breaths caught, and his own body shuddered in passion at his own orgasm. His cock erupted with semen, spraying across the short distance of the tent to hit Weiss's leg and drip into the floor.

He was breathing heavily as his cock pulsed out the remaining cum in his body, but Weiss's lust filled eyes never left his. He turned to look at his mess and muttered under his breath.

"Fucking Atlesian tease."

Weiss smiled at him. "Well I can't possibly let that little comment slide, can I? Come here."

Jaune smirked right back. He walked up and positioned himself just at the edge of his desk where Weiss was sitting up with her legs splayed open to him.

"Well? I don't know what we're supposed to do before I'm ready to go again." Jaune said with equal parts skepticism and excitement.

Weiss smirked. "Oh, I've got a few ideas."

And like that she threw her legs onto his shoulders, wrapping them around the back of his neck. Before Jaune could react she closed them like a vice around his head, forcing his face into her freshly fucked pussy. She then pulled her lower body and his head onto the desk, causing hairline fractures in the wood, and rolled herself and subsequently Jaune over so she was straddling his face. Finally, she pulled Jaune up the desk so that he was laying down on the hard wood so he wouldn't tip over.

"So, _Arc_ , I'm a fucking Atlesian tease, huh?" Weiss spread her legs out, dropping her wet snatch onto his face to muffle any response, and Jaune could only get out a murmur of surprise. "Well if you're going to be rude, then I guess I'm just going to have to put your mouth to other uses…"

She could feel his nose just below her clitoris, and _ground_ it into her engorged nub. She dragged herself back, rubbing it against her again, this time with a little more urgency.

Jaune decided to take the initiative from what she could feel under her crotch, and was dragging his dexterous tongue up and down her slit with every gyration of her hips. She could feel him tracing the route her own fingers had travelled naught minutes before, and in response began to swirl her pussy on his face, making sure that his tongue found every inch of her crotch.

But she could feel her passion waning slightly from that approach, so Weiss repositioned her hips so that the hard cartilage of Jaune's nose was back under her clit, and she returned to her regular forward and backwards movement. However, she also began to pick up her pace.

She pushed her hips harder and harder into his face, trying to slam his nose into her clit at speeds that would frankly have made her concerned for her partner's safety if Jaune didn't have aura, slamming his head into the table and barely giving Jaune room to breathe before shoving his face back into her dripping pussy.

Faster and faster she went, with the table thumping with Jaune's head hitting it over and over as Weiss's pulse began to rise again, she began to pant in exhaustion and ecstasy over the pleasure that came from her pussy, and it built higher and higher. She could just feel it as she gyrated harder and harder into Jaune's face, she was _so close_ as she slammed Jaune's head into the desk hard enough to cause a hairline fracture...and like that she went over the edge. Another pleasure filled moan came out of her as an orgasm flowed through her nerves lighting her entire body on fire in ecstasy. Her pussy erupted in juices, coating Jaune in a flood of her cum, soaking his face and hair with the fruits of his labor.

She rode out the rest of her orgasm on Jaune's face, slowly gyrating until the jolts of pleasure subsided in her. When she was done, she lifted her legs off of him, flopping her freshly fucked body back onto the table.

Jaune wiped off some of the fluids on his face with his hand. He stared at his cum soaked fingers for a second, before _slowly_ licking it off with his tongue. Weiss, who thought she'd been done after that last round, just stared at him as his tongue wrapped around long, calloused fingers. Her heart began to pound again, and her pussy was throbbing for the third time tonight despite already riding out two good orgasms.

Jaune, finally caught Weiss's eyes with his own, in a way that seemed like he was staring into the depths of her soul, and she blushed stupidly at this display despite what they'd done merely seconds ago. Her eyes broke away, and trailed down his deliciously sweaty body once more to his crotch.

Where before her little ride on the Arc express to giddiness, his rod had been flaccid, it appeared that Jaune's refractory period was over, and his cock stood once again, thick and throbbing at the sight of a beautiful nude woman.

Once again, Weiss felt a burning, deep in her core, that meant she wanted to take _all_ of his dick into her tight pussy, and by the look on Jaune's face, he had the same need.

She slid herself through her own juices across the desk to the edge, her ass hanging over the side of the desk, her legs splayed wide open to allow him unfettered access to her womanhood.

Jaune walked to the edge of the desk, and positioned the bulbous head of his cock at the entrance to her vagina, his glans rubbing against her vulva sending a buzz of excitement to both parties.

But Jaune stopped.

Contrary to his earlier actions, he spoke in a measured way that put her slightly more at ease. "Are you sure you want this Weiss? I can go slow."

Weiss, ever the eloquent one, paused for a second in thought before leaning forward to whisper in his ear. "No, _Mr_ Arc, I don't want _this_. What I want, is for you to _rail_ me as hard as you can, like the Valean _bitch_ of a general you are, against _your_ desk, until I'm _fucked_ more thoroughly than an Atlesian whore."

Jaune was taken aback for a second, before smiling in a vicious sort of grin. "You wish is my command, _Lady Schnee_."

And like that, his turgid cock was removed from its place at the edge of her folds, before it was _rammed_ into her steaming cunt.

Weiss felt her entire body move from the impact, and she felt her pussy filled to the very brim with a hard staff of muscle and cum. She could tell he was balls deep into her as they bumped against the bottom of her crotch, still swinging from the impact.

A wave of pleasure went through her, but was quickly cut short by Jaune's rod being yanked out of her. She barely had time to breath before he _slammed_ into her again, shaking the whole desk as her ass dragged the table with her.

This time, she ignored the beautifully filling feeling in her, and wrapped her legs around Jaune's back for stability, while simultaneously grabbing the edge of the desk with her hands to keep from getting pushed off.

Jaune pulled out again, and threw himself into Weiss's quivering pussy, driving his staff into her, causing another wave of pleasure to flood Weiss's body.

This time, the force was so great, Weiss's fingers made indents in the desk where she had gripped it to keep from moving, her aura flashing slightly at the force.

Jaune moved faster and faster, pistoning his cock in and out of the abused pussy, slamming it into the wet hole, with his own pleasure growing with each thrust.

Weiss could feel her orgasm building, and she released one of her hands to shift over her clitoris for stimulation, timing her finger's thrusts with the cock driving itself into her body.

Each thrust brought another wave of pleasure and pretty soon Weiss's hand and Jaune's cock were blurs rubbing out Weiss's cunt.

Finally, Weiss could feel her pleasure reaching its peak. Her heart rate had accelerated to a roaring in her ears, and her breath was starting to catch. One last thrust from Jaune and a quick bit of friction over her clitoris took her over the edge and she almost screamed in ecstasy from the orgasm that rippled through her body.

Jaune kept fucking her through the first shudder, and the second shudder, and all the subsequent dwindling shudders of her coming off of her cumming around his dick.

Her quivering pussy around his cock only excited him more as he reached his own orgasm, feeling the pulses of blood and pleasure going through his cock as he reached the point of no return.

"Weiss…" he said in a strained voice. "I can't-I'm going to-" Weiss leaned upward towards his ears, wrapping her arms around his neck, whispering to him. "It's okay, do it inside me, cum in me…"

And with those words, any measure of self-control on Jaune's part was lost, his pace got more frantic, building up more pleasure in Weiss's spent pussy before his cock exploded in her with cum.

Jaune felt the thick ropes of semen coating the inside of Weiss with spunk, and the shuddering pleasure of finally being able to release his load in her. Weiss, having been already keyed up, and taken over the edge by his final thrusts, came around his cock as well, with a lesser but still satisfying orgasm.

Jaune's cum came in more and more subdued bursts, but it was more than enough to begin to spill out of her spent cunt, white semen dribbling out of her well fucked hole. He slowly removed his cock from her, her pussy contracting slightly as if it didn't want its toy to leave it.

Weiss was well and truly done for the night, and by the looks of it, Jaune was too. But she couldn't help but take one more look at his cock at half-mast, as it dripped with Jaune's juices, as well as her own. With a last naughty thought on her mind, she reached out to the spent rod, and trailed one of her manicured fingers up its length, coating it with semen and her own juices. and looked Jaune dead in the eye.

She slowly stuck her finger in front of her, and now that she had Jaune's attention, stuck it all the way into her mouth, and sucked it clean of their fluids. The finger pulled out of her mouth with a light pop as Jaune stood there, enraptured at the display.

With that, the spell was broken, and Jaune looked sheepish again as he rubbed the back of his head. "This tent has blankets to rest on should you want to sleep here, though there's scarcely room for one on there. I'll leave if you would like some privacy."

Weiss rolled her eyes at the suggestion, and grabbed his arm.

"Hey, what're you-" he managed to get out before Weiss practically threw him onto the blankets that served as a makeshift bed, before shrugging off the Atlesian dress jacket that had somehow stayed on throughout their entire tryst, and joining him.

When he looked at her, confused, she rolled her eyes again and responded. "Atlesian tradition. Sharing body heat is important during winter." She neglected to mention that her status meant that she rarely was able to partake in the tradition, and that it was well warm enough in the tent, but he didn't need to know that.

He looked like he was about to protest, but Weiss cut him off with a harsh glare that brokered no comments.

"Alright" he said cautiously.

Jaune turned his nude body onto his side, facing away from her, and Weiss curled her own nude form up into him, her breasts pressing into his back and her legs wrapped around his.

She was happy, she was warm, and while she might have been in the middle of enemy territory, in the arms of a general that had tried to destroy her and her troops mere hours ago, she also felt paradoxically…safe.

* * *

Weiss stood on a small hill overlooking the granary they had worked so hard to share amongst their peoples. She was back with her troops, but Weiss couldn't help but ruminate on them morning she had woken up to earlier that morning after her...encounter...with General Arc.

They'd woken up with far larger hangovers than they'd expected, and a little bit more embarrassment than was strictly necessary on both sides. Jaune had cooked a small meal, and together they had worked together to make sure they were both presentable enough to announce the new treaty. Both of them had many marks and stains on them, but fortunately, Jaune had his armor, and Weiss had her cloak to obscure any truly scandalous details.

They'd left his tent finding that their people had not in fact started any wars while they were gone, so Jaune hurried Weiss and her retinue back to her camp before they were missed, and her subcommander, one Lie Ren, initiated a revenge attack.

Weiss had explained her deal to her officers, who were now transferring half of the grain to their camp to eat for the winter. Furthermore, they had finally gotten orders from the capitol, which meant that they could finally leave this gods-forsaken valley once the snow had lessened. But something about that made her stomach twist slightly in longing. It wasn't anything about any particular attachment to the valley, but more about the people in it. More specifically, one person in it.

She looked across the field to where the Valean forces lay. She couldn't see him from this distance, and even if she could, it was not like she could _do_ much given that she was surrounded by her men. Waving like a damsel who pined for a knight would hardly inspire or endear them to her.

But she still looked.

She knew, deep down, that she would probably never see that strange general again. She knew that she would be sent to the far corners of Remnant to deal with another battle, another war far away from him.

But she still looked.

And deep down, somewhere inside her, she hoped she would find that strange general again.

Little did she know how prophetic her hopes would be…


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning: This fic is rated M for a** _ **reason**_ **. Story contains explicit sexual content. 18+ readers** _ **only.**_

 **Note: All characters written with explicit material are 18+ for the purposes of this story.**

 **Disclaimer: The story contains explicit sexual content, but there is no explicit sexual content in this specific chapter. (Read A/N at the end for details)**

 **Idea inspired by Shipper of Trashy Ships. Beta read by DumpleTrump.**

* * *

Weiss walked up a small flight of grey, snow-covered stairs. She stopped in front of two seemingly wooden double doors that towered over her small form. The hood of her cloak flapped slightly in the cold wind.

The ancient door was covered in ice, stretching across the brown with white tendrils like veins all centered around a black mass in the middle of the two doors.

A hand slipped from the warmth of her white cloak. She tentatively splayed her hands across the icy mass. A furrow of her brow and a tensing of her fingers made the mass glow slightly in the bright, but freezing, atmosphere around her.

But the second she touched the mass, a blue color began to cover her fingers, gradually working it's way from the bare tips of her splayed fingers to her clipped nails.

She gritted her teeth in pain and concentration. At the expression change, another white light illuminated her fingers, with an identically colored glow to the one coming from within the mass. The white light desperately pushed at the blue, slowing it's advance across her fingers. The glow in the mass brightened farther, to the level of a bonfire, shining through the ice that covered it.

But the blue was moving over her knuckles, and her palm began to feel shards of pain lancing through it. The light around her hand shone but was just being eaten by the blue.

Finally, the blue had almost covered her entire hand. It was about to reach her wrist, and she was almost on her knees in pain. The light on her hand, and the light in the mass, began to fade.

With a cry of agony, she wrenched her hand away from the mass, ripping it out of the ice that had been forming over it. She clutched her cold, pale, shaking hand in pain. It was blue from the ice it had been encased in, but now that the ice wasn't eating her hand, the white light of her aura covered her throbbing appendage, and was already returning color to it.

Weiss winced, and quickly pulled out a pinch of red Dust from her cloak with her intact hand, sprinkling it over the other. It glowed red with warmth, and Weiss's hand stopped shaking. She tentatively flexed it, and dipped it into her cloak with her other hand.

Clutching both of her hands to her chest, she breathed heavily, and looked to the heavens as she sighed. Her light blue eyes closed silently and quietly as she gathered herself back together.

Her eyes opened again quickly, and the hands clasped against each other for warmth within the safety of her cloak. But it wasn't long before she pulled them out of the shelter of her cloak and to her back, grabbing a sledge hammer that was slung around her shoulders.

She stepped away from the ancient door, and paused to catch her breath, before she hefted the hammer over her head and slammed it into the mass. The ice cracked, and with a grunt Weiss drove the sledgehammer back into the same crack. The crack widened and spiderwebbed across the ice covering the door.

With a last roar of rage Weiss drove the hammer into the ice, and like glass it shattered into thousands of tiny uncountable pieces, revealing a grey metal snowflake emblem etched in the door. She dropped the hammer, letting it fall to the floor, and one hand went back into her cloak to return with a grey metal snowflake that matched the door, with a handle on it.

She pressed the metal implement into the door's emblem where it fit like a glove. With a grunt of exertion she turned the snowflake, to the sound of muffled gears within the door until a final click. She sighed, and pushed the not so solid seeming double doors, her metal key staying in her hands while the doors moved forward on sheer inertia.

They impacted the stone walls behind her with a thud that accompanied Weiss's first step within. She took one additional step forward and stopped. The great doors slowly started to turn back, picking up speed and barely missing Weiss's still form by inches, before slamming shut with another great thud, and letting out a gust of wind that whistled around her cloak.

She sighed, and pulled back her hood. A quick glance back towards the darkened doors showed that the ice was already starting to work its way back across the doors, inching its way back across the wood.

Weiss pulled up the hand that had been frozen, and carefully inspected it for any flaws. While a normal hand would have at the very least frostbite, her aura had kept her relatively safe.

Still, when she opened her cloak and carried it at her side, she stuck her formerly frosted hand under it, away from view.

Weiss left the hammer by the doors and turned to walk away. She stole one last look at the wooden behemoth that loomed over her, and the ice working its way back across it, before shivering and walking farther into the cathedral.

She walked with a brisk pace, ignoring the great stained glass windows that illuminated the otherwise grey cathedral with a blue tint.

She did not need to look up to know what was depicted there. The image of the slave. The peasant. The craftsman. They kneeled parallel to the invisible line that Weiss walked.

The images that were burned into the glass became even more ornate and breathtaking as she walked farther and farther down the hall, but like the others, Weiss passed those too without gazing.

The image of the baron passed her, as did the image of the duke, and soon, even the images of the the Great Men of Atlas were left in her wake with nary a glance thrown their way. All of the heroes of the past were depicted in the blue hue of the glass that she left in her wake. The White Death, the archer who had defended Atlas's sovereignty in the First Great War. The Barbarian, the first of the Valkyries. And many, many more, etched into the glass. All knelt. Same as the others.

Weiss could go on for hours speaking about each of the heroes in those walls, for their symbolism and their stories, and make no mistake, their stories _were_ worth telling. But she wouldn't. Not today. For her attention, from the second she had laid down her hammer, was focused on several dots in the distance. As she had gotten closer, the shapes had turned into a throne with some people milling about it.

She slowed down as she approached, noticing that two of the figures seemed in deep conversation. One of the two turned and saw her, before narrowing his eyes, and saying what looked to be a goodbye to the person he was talking to.

The boy, who was clad in Atlesian dress garb, similar to the clothing Weiss was currently dressed in, with a white jacket and pants, walked towards her and the ever distant doors.

He didn't show any outward signs of recognizing her as he continued on his way.

But eventually, when he was barely close enough for Weiss to see the whites of his eyes, he made the smallest modicum of eye contact with her. "Sister." He muttered as he approached.

"Whitely." She said as she dipped her head towards him in acknowledgement while narrowing her eyes at the boy. She had scarcely broke eye contact before he roughly bumped into her shoulder as he passed her.

Weiss was barely fazed, but took a second to glare at Whitley's receding back.

She sighed in annoyance before continuing on her walk.

Her turn brought her focus back towards the gilded throne and the person in front of it.

The man at the front had white hair and a white moustache, his straight back was covered by a white cloak of fur and felt. The rest of him was covered with grey robes that draped around him. While he was not particularly tall, he stood on a raised dais, gazing over the all but empty cathedral, before looking down on Weiss's approaching form.

As she came forward, his eyes roved over her, as if searching for something. Whatever it was, it seemed as if he didn't find it, because his gaze shifted back to the artwork as if she was nothing but an irritation that happened to have entered his room.

While the gilded throne and artwork around her begged to be admired, she instead focused her whole attention on the man himself. She caught his shifting eyes ignoring her and her fist tightened slightly within her grip on her cloak.

She carefully analyzed the man's behavior. The fact that he seemed like he wouldn't look at her wasn't good, but he was still standing. Furthermore, his head was bare of all but his own hair, and that signified that this would be a somewhat informal meeting.

She sighed slightly in relief and spoke.

"Hello Father."

The man's eyes narrowed to razor's edges, barely exposing his light blue eyes for the black of his pupils and eyelashes. In less than a second, a true sneer appeared his face.

He turned his back on Weiss, walking towards the gilded throne, in the process, barely missing a small raised table with a hemispheric metal case on the top. He sat down in it, slowly, avoiding eye contact with Weiss.

Her father had raised his hand into the air, and now that she was looking at him, snapped once.

The sound echoed through the massive chamber, and there was a moment of silence. Then, two bunny ears popped out from behind the gilded throne. A girl was revealed to be attached to them, looking to be about Weiss's age. She was wearing a cloth bag around herself for the sake of modesty, and was thin, to the point where her bones could be easily picked out with the naked eye.

She walked tentatively to the miniature raised table, and gently lifted the silver dome up, revealing a glittering crown of gold and jewels. After putting it back down next to the headpiece, she grabbed two handkerchiefs laying by the crown, and looked as though she was going to grasp the headpiece with them. Then she paused, and looked at the man in the throne in confirmation. He glared at her and she shivered in fear. She quickly grabbed the crown in both hands, and brought it to him. She put it gently on his head before scurrying back to the table, folding the handkerchiefs before returning them to their places.

The girl then walked back towards Weiss, and was almost within arms reach when she was stopped. A clattering of chains accompanied her sudden shift in momentum, and she almost fell. She turned back to the king who's glare had intensified.

Weiss slowly followed her gaze back to the king, and spotted a chain that trailed from his hands, across the floor, all the way to the girl's neck.

The king lowered the chain slightly, letting it go slack slightly.

His glare from the rabbit faunus turned for the first time towards Weiss. She could see the rage boiling below his forced exterior, and she had to hold herself back from gulping audibly.

She felt a tug at her sleeve and she turned to look down. The rabbit faunus flinched at her gaze, but Weiss's features softened slightly to show she wasn't angry at the girl.

The faunus lightly grabbed her cloak that was still in Weiss's hands, but Weiss shook her head slightly to tell her it was unnecessary for her to take it and her sore hand unconsciously gripped the cloth tighter.

A clink of the chain was the only warning as the chain jerked the girl's head back, and drew Weiss's attention back towards her father.

He glared at her once more, and inclined his head towards the faunus, who was doubled over, gently rubbing her sore neck while trying not to cry.

Weiss sighed in annoyance, and walked to the faunus, holding her cloak into the girl's field of vision.

The rabbit faunus looked up at her to find a sorry smile on Weiss's face. The girl nodded and whispered in a soft and quiet voice before turning back towards the throne.

"Thank you, my Lady."

Weiss sighed in exhaustion as the faunus walked back to stand just to the side of the throne with her cloak. She turned towards her father again, who finally spoke.

"You will address me by my title, _Lady_ Schnee."

Weiss averted her eyes, and took a knee in front of the king, mirroring the dozens of people in the stained glass around her.

"Yes, _your Majesty_."

His expression, for the first time since Weiss had entered the cathedral, lessened from it's scowl. A vicious smile filled his face as his daughter prostrated herself before him.

"Good...Now, brief me on what has transpired during your most recent campaign."

* * *

The light in the tent was quiet, but warm. The yellow light of the furnace painted the cloth of the tent with an earthy, welcoming glow. Jaune was in the middle of the tent, his eyes rolling over the scrolls before him.

He and his desk was buried in a mountain of scrolls, and his eyes were baggy and bloodshot. He gently put away the scroll in his hand, and tried to put it on top of the pile. His hand slipped and the pile he bumped tumbled down onto the floor. He swore slightly, and began to pick them up. He finally managed to grab them all in his hands, and he looked over his table for a free space.

His eyes roved over the desk until they finally settled on a spot at the front of his desk, which was conspicuously absent of parchment.

He looked at the spot, staring at a small dark spot on it. A vision of an angel in white hair bent over the spot entered his groggy mind, before his mind returning to the empty spot on his desk.

He bit his lip in indecision until he turned back to the scrolls in his hands. He cursed slightly, and dropped the scrolls in his hands. The blonde grabbed a bucket of water that was already by his chair, and walked around the table with it. He wiped down the spot using a rag from the bucket, a slight blush covering his face the whole time he worked.

Once he had finished, and dried the spot with another rag already in his pocket, he put down the scrolls on the previously darkened spot at the front of the desk. He sat back down, and returned to reading the scroll.

The squiggles were incomprehensible, and were glazing over in his vision, until a hand began to pull it away. He tried to hold on, but the person pulling was more insistent, pulling it away with a forceful hand on the scroll, and a gentler hand on his shoulder.

Finally, his eyes drooped, and the scroll pulled away as he fell out of consciousness.

The last thing he remembered was someone picking him in a bridal carry, and a shock of blonde hair.

* * *

Jaune woke up on the cot in his tent. It was later at night, but the fire in the furnace was burning brighter than before.

It outlined a large, blonde, feminine, figure sitting in front of his bed on a chair.

He sat up and the sound of his movement alerted the person sitting next to him. "Ah, you're awake." She said.

"I fell asleep?" The male blonde in the bed said with a hint of curiosity mixed with his teasing.

For his comment he got a flick in his head, and the figure got up to stretch.

"Yeah, stupid. When was the last time you got some good sleep?"

Jaune's eyes narrowed in concentration, his mouth opening for a reply, but another figure, slimmer, nuder, with white hair and a teasing smirk, filled his vision when the question was asked, and he feebly lowered his hand.

The blonde in front of him, now putting on her gauntlets, looked simultaneously smug and disappointed.

"You can't even remember can you?"

Jaune declined to explain that remembering wasn't exactly the issue, and settled for just looking sheepish.

"Idiot…you can't afford you to do this yourself anymore." She said as her glare fixed him into place. "More specifically, _we_ can't afford you doing this to yourself anymore." Yang said to a flinch from him in response.

"Sorry, Yang." he said apologetically, as she towered over his sitting position.

She sighed, and leaned over to place her hand on his shoulder, running her thumb over his shoulder.

"Look, we _always_ cared about your wellbeing. It's just that now, 'we' has gotten a lot bigger, okay?" With that said, she pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, picking him physically off of the cot with as little effort as a normal person would lifting a particularly skinny dog.

Jaune sputtered in her grip, and struggled slightly before settling for awkwardly returning her embrace.

"Thanks, Yang." He said sheepishly from her shoulder.

That was when a shit-eating grin split her face, and she unceremoniously dropped him onto the floor. His curses returned colorfully as he tried to pick himself up.

"And that was for?" he said with a wince of pain at the drop.

"Making Ozpin wait for your little nap. Ruby's gonna be insufferable after he's through with her..."

"What?!" Jaune squeaked out in surprise.

Yang took a special pleasure in her explanation as she continued.

"Oh yeah, that's what I was coming in to talk to you about. Then you were practically keeling over, and I asked Ozzie if he'd hold up for you long enough to make you coherent."

Jaune's face paled, and he almost tripped trying to running to his desk, splashing some water into his face, before drying it with the now dry again rag in his pocket.

He wiped his hands of water, and grabbed the scrolls on his desk in one swoop, and almost threw them, trying to stuff them into the drawer next to him. They wouldn't fit in, and Jaune was about to push them harder, when a familiar hand grabbed his shoulder, stopping him.

Yang pulled him back, and instead of trying to force the scrolls in, she gripped the end of the drawer, shaking it slightly, forcing some of the scrolls to settle down in the wooden box. She slowly closed the drawer with ease, with a look at the male blonde next to her.

"You sure you're okay? Oz would be happy to wait longer you know."

Jaune looked away slightly in mild embarrassment, and a healthy amount of shame, before he breathed his doubts away, and looked her in the eye.

"Yang, I'm _fine_." He said steadily.

Her face said she wasn't impressed, and Jaune looked a tad sheepish as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Okay, well, I'm fine _enough_. And while _Oz_ will be okay with waiting, I...can't exactly put this off forever."

Yang kept a steely gaze on him, before sighing, and leaving the tent.

"I'll send him in."

Jaune straightened, and sniffed himself before sitting down to wait.

* * *

A man in an olive green cloak walked into the tent.

He pulled back his hood, revealing a man of simple dark green clothing, grey hair, and dark spectacles.

Jaune got out of his chair, greeting him. "Professor! It's good to see you, let me get your-" the man cut him off with a hand.

"It's fine, Jaune, don't get up on my account," he said as he put his cloak on the coat rack by the front of the tent.

Jaune sat back down reluctantly, but he reached under his desk to open another cabinet.

"A drink, sir?"

Ozpin smiled ever so slightly, and Jaune pulled out two glasses with a whiskey bottle.

"I certainly wouldn't mind a drink, at any rate."

Jaune smirked as he poured a liberal helping out of the half full bottle for both.

"If I had known that you were coming, I would've gotten some coffee to cut the whiskey. After all," Jaune continued, "Beacon rarely sends their war professors to a _real_ war…"

Ozpin smiled slightly more, but the tips of his lips dropped again just as quickly to a neutral expression.

"Haste was necessary, I'm afraid. Nobody knows that I'm here." he said cryptically.

Jaune frowned at that, and took a long draught of the whiskey, wincing slightly at the burn.

"Nobody?"

"Nobody."

Jaune's face contorted in concentration, and he set the glass back down.

"...why _are_ you here, Professor?"

The man sighed, and his tightened, but that was the only indication of what he was thinking.

"That...is for later, Jaune. For now, I need your report of what happened in the last few weeks."

It was Jaune's turn to sigh this time.

"Oh boy...this is going to be a _long_ story…"

* * *

Weiss's head was facing the floor as she spoke.

"I had travelled via horse to Vallis Sanguinem. Our guide was exemplary, and due to the storm postponing itself slightly, we arrived several hours ahead of schedule. The scene we happened upon was…" She paused.

Her Atlesian upbringing, and the king's wrath hanging over her head like a sword, forced her to... _moderate_...her response to something less crude than she'd been originally planning.

"...unexpected."

* * *

 _A figure in full armor stopped her horse, and the retinue behind her stopped as well. The armor bore the snowflake insignia of the Schnees, however the figure inside bore the body-language of confusion. The armored head swung back and forth, as if it couldn't believe what it was looking at._

 _Before them lay a camp. Completely stocked, with enough tents, fire pits, and supplies to support a legion. The only thing missing was the legion itself. The entire camp was empty, devoid of any and all people._

" _My Lady?" A man in ratty clothing below her said uncertainly. "I don't know what's going on, I would swear on my life that the 5th legion camped here naught two days ago. I don't-"_

 _The armored woman hopped off of the horse quickly to stand next to him, and patted her horse to calm her. The light layer of snow on the ground squished and melted beneath her. "At ease, guide." She said calmly. "They_ _ **were**_ _here."_

 _She looked around, and her eyes roved over the intact camp. They lingered on empty armories, with the stores of armor, swords, arrows, and shields missing. But they only truly stopped on a nearby fireplace. It was smoking lightly, with the embers glowing, and the fire was just beginning to burn out. The fire even had a local fowl skewered above it. Her eyes narrowed._

" _My Lady?" The guide said uncertainly._

" _Would you like additional payment?" She said quickly._

" _I'm sorry?"_

" _You have done exemplary work." Weiss said as she looked at the rapidly darkening clouds above them. "We are hours ahead of schedule."_

 _The guide preened slightly but she interrupted his thoughts._

" _But it appears I would have need of your skills for a little longer, if you would be willing."_

 _The guide shrugged, though he looked mildly uncomfortable. "Money is money my Lady."_

 _Her helmet bobbed slowly as she nodded, and gestured for him to lead the way._

" _Good." She said as they began to walk. "After all, if my legion is not willing to wait for me, then I will have to come to them."_

* * *

"We found them." Weiss said in a monotone.

"Obviously" The king growled from above her.

She was tempted to roll her eyes from her position below him, but refrained, and she continued.

* * *

" _My Lady?" The guide shouted from atop a horse at the summit of the hill._

" _Yes?" Weiss responded as her horse continued to walk upwards._

 _She crested the hill as her guide spoke again in a slightly sarcastic tone._

" _I believe we have found them."_

 _She looked down the hill and saw them, thousands of men trudging through the snow in heavy armor. They flooded most of the valley, and extended so far they became dots on the horizon. But even at this distance she could see the light from flashing auras in the front line, and the smoke rising from various points in the valley._

 _Her face contorted into a sneer under her helmet._

" _Guide." She said curtly._

" _Yes, my Lady?" He said uncertainly._

" _Would you like to stay? After this point, I head to war." She said to him, her helmet giving her voice a slight echo._

" _..." His hesitation spoke volumes._

 _She tilted her head slightly at the small train of servants behind her. "My retinue could always use someone who knows where we need to be going."_

 _From far ahead of them, the faintest whispers of the battle wafted back to them, carrying the screams steel and people dying._

 _The man beside her shrunk slightly at the offer, and said nothing, his head hanging low. The rest of Weiss's retinue waited behind them, observing with curiosity._

 _He remained silent. "I am sorry, my Lady."_

 _She sighed in resignation._

" _Leave me. Keep the horse. Consider it your payment for your assistance"_

 _He looked at her in surprise before turning the horse around and galloping away as fast as possible._

 _The storm clouds above them grumbled as they grew darker. The first droplet of water fell and landed on her armor, working its way to her skin, giving her a cold and clammy feeling._

 _She gestured for her retinue to stay on the hill. It was a poor idea to bring servants to a potential battlefield without proper information._

 _Weiss set her expression into one of distaste under her helmet, and with a small movement of her legs, had her own horse galloping towards the battle below._

* * *

Weiss had stopped in her recounting.

"Well?" The king rumbled in annoyance above her. "What did you find, Lady Schnee?"

She sighed.

"Madness."

* * *

 _Her lone horse stopped at the hordes of men, and the ones closest to her stared at her, bewildered at her appearance. She stopped at the first man with a banner bearing her snowflake, clad head to toe in armor, who was speaking to another soldier._

 _She hopped off of her horse. Her armor made an undignified squelch as it sank slightly into the muddy ground. The man in the banner didn't even register the noise and kept talking, but the man he was ostensibly was supposed to be talking to did. The man that noticed her was not wearing an additional banner, but instead clad merely in light armor like her own, and sporting a shock of dark hair, and looked at her with an enigmatic expression that resembled curiosity._

 _Weiss had finally had it with the man with the banner's insolence, and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him to face her._

" _Are you the commander here?" She leveled authoritatively to him._

" _Excuse me? Who are you?" He sneered at her._

 _Her fingers clenched into fists._

" _I am your general. Now, are. you. the. commander?" She said with a dangerous tone._

 _The man next to the man with the banner turned to look at her even more closely, revealing a pink strip in his hair._

" _Really,_ _ **you're**_ _the general? Then I'm the Queen." the man with the banner on his back said with a laugh. "Baron Watts is our commander, now go join the rank and file,_ _ **knight**_ _. Or I'll have you detained."_

 _Weiss's stance could have informed the most casual of observers of the lack of patience she had with her situation, but before her anger erupted, she noticed others around them were starting to stare and were subtly clearing a circle around her. Her hand unclenched from a fist to grasp the handle of her rapier instead._

 _But before she could do anything, the man with the black hair with the pink strip stepped up and stopped the knight with the banner from walking away. He whispered in a way that carried his words to Weiss despite the distant din of battle. "Sky, the Baron was recalled, remember?"_

 _The man with the banner, Sky, scoffed. "Yeah, and_ _ **this**_ _is going to be his replacement? Some girl with a fancy sword? Yeah, right."_

 _Weiss was glad that her helmet was covering her face, as otherwise her murderous expression would've been evident and might have triggered the armed knights that were growing uneasier by the minute._

" _My Lady," The voice from the knight with black hair and light armor broke through her raging thoughts. "Perhaps a proof of your nobility would help?"_

 _A scowl deepened her impression. "Very well."_

 _Weiss reached for a sealed scroll attached to her back, but hesitated. With a subtle movement of her eyes, she could see that most of the knights around her all were looking at the drama with genuine curiosity. Slowly, her hand moved from the parchment, and instead draped over her rapier._

 _She waved everyone away from her, and unsheathed her rapier, making everyone nearby unconsciously reach for their own weapons, and Weiss made a show of revolving the chamber loaded with dust. It ticked slowly across until it stopped on the glowing red slit in the chamber._

 _With a roar she plunged it into the snow covered ground. Nothing occured for a second, until a glowing glyph appeared from underneath her, and the ground around her erupted into flames, almost scorching the armor of the knights around her before they pulled back in fear._

 _The steam from the rapid melting and evaporation of the snow obscured her from the knights. Only the barest outlines of her body could be made out in the fog. Then a great wind roared around them and the steam flew away while the knights tried not to get blown away by the gust._

 _The receding steam revealed Weiss, standing there, unharmed, and her aura shining brightly._

 _She stood in the middle of a snowflake scorched into the grass by her glyph. Around the burning snowflake was a large circle bereft of the layer of snow that was scattered around the battlefield. She stormed out of her charred crater and walked up to the man with banner. She took off her helmet, revealing a shock of Schnee-white hair, and an expression that was murderous._

 _She shoved her helmet into the man with the banner's hands, and spoke slowly._

" _You will go to every cohort in this legion, and impress upon them that Weiss Schnee, Second in line to the Throne of Nidavellir is the new Commander of the 5th Legion."_

 _He nodded as she continued._

" _If I find anyone who is not up to date with the new arrangement, I will hold you_ _ **personally**_ _responsible."_

" _Understood." He said quickly._

" _Good." she said as her expression returned to a neutral tone. "Go."_

 _He was about to leave, already turned away to his duties with Weiss's helmet, when she called out again._

" _Oh, and Mr...Sky? Was it?"_

 _He looked reluctant to speak, and didn't even turn around, but he responded anyway. "Sky Lark, my Lady."_

" _Mr Sky Lark. Keep that for now, as a..._ _ **reminder**_ _, but if that helmet is not on my head by the end of the day, I will have_ _ **yours**_ _."_

 _Sky scurried off to relay his orders, while she turned back towards the man with the black hair._

" _I presume you're the second in command?"_

" _No, Lady Schnee, I am one of the subcommanders. My name is Lie Ren."_

 _Weiss frowned. "Then who is the second in command, Sir Ren?"_

 _Ren shrugged. "There is no second in command. The Lord was rather insistent that he was the only one with the complete idea of what was going on. For security's sake, supposedly."_

 _Weiss caught the disdain in his words that was not expressed in his emotionless face and smirked slightly to herself._

" _Well it's a good thing Lord Watts is no longer the commander. As of now, Sir Ren, you're my second in command. Security is secondary to survivability, and I need someone to help me manage this mess."_

 _Ren's expression was shifted slightly, not betraying any true emotions, but at the very least seemed like her actions were...unexpected, which Weiss was prepared to take as a positive._

" _As you wish, my Lady."_

" _Good. Now..."_

 _Her expression had hardened to that of one in the midst of combat before she continued._

" _Brief me."_

* * *

"With the help of the nearest subcommander, I tried to reestablish a command structure. The information... _dispersion_...made getting an idea of the tactical situation difficult, but not impossible. In total I had to personally contact at least a dozen other subcommand-"

"I am not here for minutiae." The king bellowed. "That is for generals."

"I was merely-" She started deferentially, looking up at the king before she was cut off by a harsh glare. "-Understood."

She sighed and returned her eyes towards the floor before continuing.

"The tactical situation was...unusual."

* * *

 _Her rapier was no longer on her hip, and was resting against the edge of a table. The table had a map of the valley on it, and Weiss was hastily scribbling on it with a piece of charcoal._

 _Black lines and arrows dotted the entire valley, and Weiss's bare fingers were smudged black from the carbon._

" _My Lady?"_

 _Weiss turned to see Ren walking up to her._

" _Report?"_

" _Prior to his departure, the far west flank was ordered to advance, at all costs, regardless of the terrain."_

 _The young general scowled slightly and drew a straight line across the map._

" _Troop strength?" She said without looking back up._

" _10% casualties."_

" _Damn…" she said quietly at the losses. "At least it's simple."_

" _My Lady?" Her subordinate said in concern._

 _She gestured him towards her, and he took his place by her side. The map was crossed with dozens of lines, but all the lines pointing towards the enemy were parallel and straight across the map._

" _Look at this. What do you think I see?"_

" _It...appears like we were all given identical orders." He said uncertainly._

" _Wrong." The general said ominously. "That is not what I see."_

 _The knight looked closer at the map, but couldn't discern its purpose._

" _I'm afraid I do not follow my Lady."_

 _Weiss sighed. "I see a meatgrinder."_

 _Sir Ren now looked at her in confusion, and she began to explain._

" _This is not tactics and strategy. This is a human wave, if this was a flat plain, I would say that this formation was designed to clear wheat, with row upon row of men moving symmetrically across a field. But this is not a flat plain, and the only thing being cut down is men."_

 _She pointed to hills._

" _Those should've slowed men down, causing massive gaps in our lines that would've been taken advantage of, and this-" she said as she shifted her finger to point at the river "should have slogged at our men, particularly our most heavily armored knights, and the opposite bank of the river should have been a bloodbath."_

 _She sighed to herself, and pinched her nose, before speaking again._

" _And it wasn't."_

" _So what happened?"_

 _The young general returned to her map._

" _That is what I have spent the last several minutes trying to decipher." She paused. "Has there been any major enemy assaults on the far west flank?"_

" _Apart from an intense early skirmish, not that we know of."_

 _She pored over the map, as if it would reveal its secrets._

" _So there is an entire legion without any specific orders, any high ranking officers, any terrain advantage, and this entire situation has somehow not been capitalized on by the enemy in_ _ **any**_ _significant way."_

" _Perhaps the enemy is merely inept?"_

 _Weiss's eyes narrowed._

 _Her second in command shrugged in confusion. before a distant popping sound made him and his general look up. Flashes went off in the sky in the distance. Barely visible against the oncoming storm clouds were trails of grey smoke streaming through the air above her troops, flanked on the edges by black smoke._

 _His general turned to him in confusion and he obliged her._

" _Daytime signal flares of dust and wool. Grey means they're advancing, black means they're stopped, red means they're falling back. Only the subcommanders can signal them, and generally only when all other forms of communication are compromised. It appears that the main force is advancing and the flanks are stalled."_

" _Compromised?"_

" _A physical barrier is blocking runners from getting back to the commander. Likely the river."_

 _She was silent as she tried to imagine what that actually meant on the battlefield, but her knight took that as confirmation to continue. Then a cold breeze wafted through the tent causing her to shiver slightly as Ren spoke again._

" _Well, whatever the enemy will do, short of retreating, they are going to want to do it now." He said enigmatically. "Nearly half of our entire force is across the river."_

 _Weiss froze at his words as her eyes widened in horror._

* * *

Jaune sighed as he poured more alcohol into his glass, and his guest's, though instead of drinking it, he just stared at his drink in tired contemplation.

"I was working as a logistical supply manager." He started. "I was taking care of the supply chain to the troops and the front."

"A step up from I last saw you." Ozpin said enigmatically.

Jaune smiled. "Lord Aran was a good general. He said I was good at getting things where they needed to go. Something about making friends with everyone I met."

Ozpin smiled to himself as the blonde man continued.

"Technically, as someone of noble blood who could read and write, I was in the chain of command. _Technically_."

"But?"

Jaune's smile turned slightly more hollow. "It was the last day of fall. There was a storm coming. A _big_ one. We all assumed that nobody would be stupid enough to try to attack with the chance of a storm looming over their heads…"

* * *

 _A blonde-haired man slept on the bottom bunk in a quiet tent lined with other bunks. Only a sliver of light came from the open flap of the tent's door._

 _It was peaceful, before a cold breeze fluttered through the flap, with a short figure with a dark red cape following behind, spilling light throughout the tent. Her head whipped back and forth, until she spotted the blonde man._

" _Jaune!" She cried out in relief as she dashed over to him. His body was jolted as she slammed into him, and squeezed tightly, knocking the wind out of him._

 _The groggy man tried to collect himself and stared at the figure that had hit him._

" _Ruby? What're you doing here? Do you know what time it is?"_

" _OhmygodI'msogladyou'renotdead!"_

 _Jaune shook his head to clear out the cobwebs clouding his thoughts, and tried to distengle himself from his friend, while deciphering her words._

" _Wait, what? Ruby, what's going on?"_

 _Ruby pushed herself off of him and stared at him in confusion. "Didn't you hear?"_

" _Hear_ _ **what**_ _? I've been asleep all day."_

" _People have been going nuts, they're saying the General...he's dead."_

 _Jaune froze in shock, before shaking it off and getting up to walk out of the tent, with Ruby right behind him._

" _What happened?" He said as he grabbed a shirt off of a rack while moving._

" _We don't know, something happened, he was out on a mission? And this massive attack just wiped him and his retinue out."_

 _Jaune had cleared the barracks and was on his way to the command tent, where a tall blonde woman was waiting._

" _Yang, thank the_ _ **gods**_ _. What the hell is going on? Ruby said the general's dead?"_

 _Yang took a second to just stare at him in shock, before grabbing him in a backbreaking hug and bodily lifting him off of the ground._

" _Thank the gods you're okay." She said in a whisper before she dropped him back down._

 _Jaune could barely breath when he was in her deathgrip, and once she dropped him again he almost collapsed to the ground, greedily gulping in air._

" _Yang…" he said between breaths. "I love you...but...what...the hell?"_

" _Yeah sis!" Ruby said helpfully from his side. "What gives?"_

" _Ruby, get your scythe." Yang said quickly before she could get a word in edgewise._

" _But-"_

" _ **Now**_ _." She said before adopting a calmer tone. "Look, Rubes, Remember how you wanted to fight?"_

" _Yeah-" She stopped as a look of realization lit up her face, and she nodded with excitement. "Oh! You got it sis!" She shouted as she dashed off to the armory with a trail of rose petals in her wake._

 _Jaune had recovered from his coughing fit, and he'd begun looking at Yang in concern._

" _Well?"_

" _Come on…" Yang said as she pulled him into the command tent._

 _Normally, the tent would've held the general and any relevant knights to attend him, but it was conspicuously barren, had Jaune not been intimately familiar with the tent from working there, he would have thought it was just another person's regular accommodations._

" _Yang, what's going on, what happened to Lord Aran?"_

" _I don't know."_

 _Jaune blinked in surprise before trying a different tactic._

" _Sir Unjax?"_

" _I don't know."_

" _Anyone else-"_

" _ **I DON'T KNOW!**_ " _She bellowed in rage, her eyes crimson._

 _Jaune flinched from her voice, and she visibly pulled herself back, breathing deeply and closing her eyes before speaking again._

" _Sorry. But...Jaune, where,_ _ **exactly**_ _were the senior officers supposed to be this morning?"_

 _The blonde man racked his brain to think of what was going on. "There was…" his tired mind finally caught up with his mouth with an accompanying face of realization. "A diplomatic visit! Some lower ranked lord was coming and wanted to see the other side of the river." His hand sheepishly ran through his hair as he finished his story, "I'd accidentally stayed up all night documenting our supply scrolls, and the General excused me from going."_

" _Shit…Jaune, how many people was the General planning on taking?"_

" _Pretty much the general and all of his staff. They didn't want to arouse alarm by bringing the whole army. Yang, what's going on?"_

 _She ran a hand through her hair hurriedly as she explained. "Listen Jaune, listen_ _ **very**_ _closely. Are you_ _ **absolutely sure**_ _that they were going across the river?"_

" _Yeah."_

 _Yang sighed. She clenched her fist and slammed it on a nearby cabinet, creating a spiderweb of cracks in it._

" _Well then…" she said with a forced calm that belied her crimson eyes. "We've work to do._ _ **General**_ _Arc."_

* * *

"I take it the diplomatic mission didn't go well?" Ozpin said tiredly.

"You think?" Jaune said irritably. "Yang said when she was doing patrol, she found people coming back bloody from the other side of the river. Nobody had any idea what was going on, and the entire command staff was missing."

Jaune took another sip of the amber liquid.

"So what did you do?" Ozpin asked.

"Oz, you've known me for years, what the hell did you _think_ I did?" Jaune said as he downed the rest of his glass.

* * *

" _NO!"_

" _You can't say no!"_

" _Watch me! No! I'm not a general, I'm a supply clerk, and I'm not leading those people to their deaths!"_

 _Yang pinched the bridge of her nose in exhaustion. Anger and heat were radiating from her body equally, making the man in front of her cringe._

" _Jaune, there isn't anyone else._ _ **Nobody**_ _else can lead like you can."_

" _Well maybe we're better off with_ _ **nobody**_ _leading us!"_

* * *

"Well, I take it you came around on the issue." Ozpin said helpfully.

"Oz, the phrase you're looking for is 'no shit'."

"So Miss Xiao Long convinced you?"

"...let's just say that she beat some sense into me."

* * *

 _The hand came up quickly and harshly across his face, leaving a red imprint in its wake._

 _Jaune staggered and would have fallen to the ground had he not grabbed a desk for support._

 _He rubbed his jaw in pain, and his following words were spoken quietly._

" _All that talk about being more than our parents, and you_ _ **still**_ _resort to violence to prove your point."_

 _The now incensed woman grabbed him by his collar and lifted him bodily into the air, cocking a hand back to punch him into the next tent when she stopped. Her eyes, red, closed, and after breathing out, they opened with lilac orbs._

 _She unceremoniously dropped him, and the blonde man barely kept from falling to the ground a second time._

 _Yang was quiet, and her face was screwed up in concentration, before she spoke again._

" _Fuck. You."_

 _Jaune, with a slightly apologetic expression, rubbed the back of his neck._

" _Sorry. Too far."_

" _No shit."_

" _Sorry?"_

 _Yang rolled her violet eyes, and sighed, before giving him a light punch in the shoulder._

 _Jaune sighed, and rubbed the bridge of her nose._

" _Why me?" He said quietly. "Why me of all people? Why not_ _ **you**_ _, you're just as smart as I am."_

 _Yang shrugged. "You can read."_

 _Jaune rolled his eyes and stayed quiet._

 _Silence reigned between them for uninterrupted seconds._

 _Then Yang sighed. "And everyone trusts you."_

 _The blonde male's shoulders slumped slightly, and he let out a breath. He looked at her._

" _Everyone?"_

 _Yangs smile was tiny, but present._

" _Well,_ _ **some**_ _of us."_

 _A gust of freezing wind blew through the room, and the distant sound of thunder sounded in the distance._

 _Both of their faces fell simultaneously._

" _I might fuck up." he said seriously._

" _That was a given."_

 _His face was slightly more somber than before as he looked at her._

" _I'm going to need your help."_

 _She smiled._

" _That was a given too, Vomit Boy."_

 _That got a smile out of him too. It lasted just until her face became more serious._

" _So where do we start?" She said quickly._

" _Well…" he said uncertainly. "We need battle plans. So I'm going to need you to break the locks on these cabinets..."_

* * *

"So what happened next?"

"We sent Ruby to scout and grab other knights. Anyone and everyone who knew how to get people where they needed to go. Then we sent out reconnaissance parties."

"I hesitate to sound like I'm repeating myself, but what did you find?"

Jaune sighed. "Madness."

* * *

" _We always knew we were outnumbered."_

" _Well, yes," Jaune said with annoyance. "But generally we've never had to face 2 to 1 odds before. Where did these new troops even come from?"_

" _Well…" Yang said uncertainly. "Whatever we come up with, we need to do it_ _ **now**_ _. The other knights will be arriving any minute, and we need a plan. Atlas's first troops are already beginning to cross the river."_

 _Jaune closed his eyes in contemplation, before a small, vicious, smile opened on his face._

 _A quick few strokes of his charcoal had the paper covered in arrows. After he finished, he held it up to Yang, who narrowed her eyes at it, before slowly nodding._

" _The hardest part will be breaking their lines." He started. "We'll need someone crazy, and powerful on the front line to pull this off." Jaune said in a faux offhand tone._

 _Yang punched him lightly. "Don't worry about me. I already said yes. We just need to get everyone_ _ **else**_ _on board."_

 _Jaune sighed. "Well the good news is that if we pull this off, Great-Grandma Hanniba is going to be so proud of me..."_

* * *

" _We can't retreat." Jaune said to the angry noises of the other knights in the room._

" _Why not!" came a voice in the back._

" _Because we'd get cut down!" Jaune said angrily. "The valley only gets smaller from here, and we all know that the only reason we can fight Atlas at_ _ **all**_ _right now is because we have the mobility advantage. But that doesn't mean_ _ **anything**_ _if we have to fight a solid wave of troops twice our size!"_

 _The room was quiet. From the way all of the assembled men and women stood in a shocked silence, and from the atrocious state of their intelligence, Jaune suspected that they hadn't known how large the forces they were facing were._

 _He sighed. "But I have a plan."_

* * *

 _Jaune stood at the back of a regiment of knights. They saw the shine of the incoming Atlesians as they rushed towards them._

 _The impromptu general spotted Yang's blonde tresses in the huddled masses, and he walked through the throngs up to her._

" _Hey."_

" _Hey."_

" _...You ready?"_

 _The woman nodded, though her fidgeting shoulders betrayed his unease._

 _Jaune shifted nervously. "Don't worry, I'll be right behind you, in the thick of it with everyone else."_

 _The blonde woman rolled her eyes before sneaking a look at him armed with an ancestral sword, shield, and nothing else. "Respectfully, I really don't think your particular presence will affect the battle too much."_

" _Hey, I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to me."_

 _Yang tilted his head in confusion at him._

 _Jaune laughed her befuddled expression on her face. "I was reminding myself that if this fails, odds are I won't survive this mess long enough to hear you say 'I told you so'"_

 _The woman was silent before barking out a laugh, drawing stares from the assembled warriors around them. "HA! Well shit, Jaune, I guess that means I'm going to have to win then then."_

 _At that, Jaune just smiled, before both turned at the oncoming sound of clashing metal. They looked at each other with grim faces, and Yang spoke softly._

" _Go."_

 _Jaune nodded and began to move his way back through the throngs of people, away from the front. But as he left, Yang heard his voice one last time._

" _Hey Yang! We survive this, I'll let you say 'I told you so' all you want…"_

 _Yang smiled._

" _I'll hold you to that vomit boy…"_

* * *

"Well?" The king growled. "What happened?"

Weiss sighed under her breath and continued from her prostrate form in front of her regent.

"To get into the _minutiae_ of the battle," she started with a monotone voice that belayed her annoyance, "We were facing an inverted crescent."

"My legion outnumbered the Valeans by two to one," she continued, "But by the time I arrived there, the legion was separated by a river, which prevented my legion from pressing their advantage in numbers."

"Lady Schnee…" he muttered dangerously. "That is **how** the battle transpired. What **happened**?"

Weiss's shoulders slumped slightly at this and her own words were curt and quick.

"Half of my forces were encircled and were going to be slaughtered."

* * *

" _We need to reinforce the men across the river."_

 _Ren, to his credit, didn't even flinch at his leige's sudden pivot when it came to his mission objectives, but even he struggled to come up with a response to her words._

" _Uh, my Lady, we...can't. Not immediately. "_

 _Weiss was scanning over the map before her, particularly the river that happened to split the valley in two. "There are no bridges?"_

" _They were destroyed in the first forays across the river. Our men have been just rushing headlong into the water to wade across. Fine for crossing slowly, not very easy to evacuate."_

 _Weiss scowled. "What if we could make a bridge?"_

" _That might work, but I don't-" The knight couldn't even finish his words before his general was rushing out of the war tent, stopping only to grab her rapier, before dashing to her retinue that had finally reached them, and was just beginning to unpack._

" _My Lady, what are you-" he started before Weiss cut him off with a quick movement of her arm before pushing her rapier into an attendant's arms before addressing her servants._

" _Ice dust,_ _ **now**_ _."_

" _How much-" her servants got out before her eyes narrowed._

" _ **All**_ _of it."_

 _Within seconds, one of her attendants had dismantled her sword into pieces. Another opened an enormous metal chest, which contained dozens of metal canisters. They moved several of them out of the chest, and opened them, revealing the faint blue glow of dust within them._

 _They began to carefully drop blue dust into her cylinder. Frost began to form around them, and the cold began to creep into the armor of the knights around them._

 _With shivers and curses, every assembled warrior began to notice something was wrong, and turned to watch the display. They stood, transfixed, watching as the attendants carefully poured in the glowing dust._

 _Finally, after inestimable minutes, the cylinders were filled, and the rapier was slotted back into place. The attendants prostrated themselves in front of Weiss, holding her blade out for her._

 _Weiss cautiously reached forward and gently picked up the weapon. An almost imperceptible pulse of aura spun the now completely blue cylinder, and her armored finger dragged itself up the blade, letting out gentle wisps of condensation._

 _Then, as though a spell had been broken, her eyes refocused on the people around her, who were all watching the spectacle with rapt attention. The narrowing of her eyes, and the click that came from the sheathing of her rapier had everyone rapidly moving back to whatever they had been doing before._

 _She turned to her new second in command and spoke cautiously._

" _Sir Ren, is there something you would wish to say?"_

 _The quiet knight jolted out of his reverie and tried to articulate his thoughts._

" _It's nothing my Lady…" he started quickly. "It's just that...most of use have never seen that much dust before, let alone..._ _ **that**_ _."_

 _Weiss looked at him curiously before shrugging the statement off and began to walk towards the sound of battle._

" _If you believe this is impressive, wait until I_ _ **use**_ _this…" she said ominously. As if responding to her words, the wind around them began to pick up ._

* * *

"I hope you do not expect to be _compensated_ for that dust Lady Schnee."

Weiss scowled at the floor, but her annoyance didn't seep into her tone.

"Understood, your majesty."

* * *

 _She stood at the bank of the river, the waters roaring across it as the pitched shadows from a battle took place on the opposite bank. The wind had picked up, and the river was frothing at its outer edges. The chill of the coming snow penetrated Weiss's armor and worked its way to her core, though which portion of the cold was from the storm, and which was from her rapier, she wasn't able to tell._

" _My Lady…" her second in command said from her side. "Are you sure about this?"_

 _The young general sighed, and pointed to the fog covering the river, obscuring their view of the other side despite the wind whistling around them._

" _Look beyond the fog Ren. They're fighting at the banks of the river. The trap is closing…"_

 _The knight took time to squint at the foggy bank before nodding and standing aside._

 _She took the time to look at the assembled men behind her, who were looking at her curiously. The whispers of their discontent filtered back to her, wondering why they were not jumping into the river to help their allies._

 _Lady Schnee squared her shoulders and set her feet. Wide enough for stability, but not too wide of a stance. She took a breath, and drew her rapier._

 _Like a bolt out of a crossbow she dashed forward, with glyphs barely having enough time to form underneath on the damp ground before her feet slammed into them, and she reached the river's waters in less than a second._

 _A larger glyph than the ones before formed under her feet, and she slammed both of her feet into them, and sprung into the air, taking her a quarter of the way across the length of the river before she began to descend._

 _The black churning waters threatened to swallow her whole before a quick twitch of her rapier sent a line of blue dust ahead of her, driving a stake of ice into the river so deep that it buried itself in the sandy bottom._

 _That was where she landed, on a precarious patch of ice in the middle of swirling waters. Not even taking enough time to relieve herself of her momentum, the woman slammed her rapier into the waters._

 _Her aura was as bright as the sun as it spun her rapier's dust cylinders at a furious pace._

 _Without even a second of hesitation, an eruption of ice exploded across the surface of the roiling waters, freezing waves and crests in midair, and causing the fog across the river to fly away, revealing both banks._

 _On one, half of her legion was fighting for their lives, and on the other, the rest of her legion waited with bated breath for her command._

 _The expulsion of aura and dust had drained her of any words, so she merely dragged her sword out of the frozen river and held it aloft above her head._

 _She let it stay there for a second, taking a moment to admire the image she was no doubt making, before she lowered it toward the side of the river with their Valean enemies._

 _A great roar came from her men and they began to charge across the river._

 _Weiss was exhausted from what she had done. Her supposedly 'light' armor chafed her, her arms were numb with the cold that came from summoning so much ice dust, and she could feel the aches that came from the depletion of her aura._

 _The wind of the storm whistled around her in a gale as she stood up, and started to dash towards her battered and bruised legion._

* * *

"Your legion survived."

It was not a question. But Weiss hesitated in her response before answering with the only thing she could respond with

"Yes."

* * *

 _The opposite side of the river was a roiling mess of people and weapons. Had it been an average day she would have been able to see the gleam of her soldier's weapons and armor from the banks. But it was no average day, and every weapon and piece of armor was caked in mud and gore._

 _She arrived and broke into a relatively quiet patch of land with who she assumed was the commander._

" _Subcommander!" She shouted over the din of dying men. "We come bearing reinforcements!"_

 _The man turned to her gratefully. "Thank the gods!" he said in excitement. "We're getting pressed from the flanks, and-"_

 _He was cut off by a bugle, and his eyes widened to the size of saucers. "ARROW UP!" he screamed to everyone nearby, and he quickly tackled Weiss to the ground to the whizzing of projectiles._

 _Now stained with the mud of the battlefield, Weiss hurriedly tried to push herself up, despite the man still leaning his full weight to keep her down. She looked around, finding arrows scattered on the ground around them, before realizing that the man pressed against her wasn't moving._

 _She pulled back to look into his face, only to find his eyes now listless and unfocused. Weiss moved him slightly to look at his back and found it pockmarked with arrows sticking out of him._

 _The cold of the storm didn't seem so frigid anymore as she froze in place._

 _A great shout came up from the side, grabbing her attention in time to keep her from vomiting over the corpse._

 _Weiss flipped him onto his back gently and pulled his eyelids down,_

" _For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. And it is in life that we truly live. Rest, knight, you have earned it."_

 _Once the last word had passed her lips, she got up and began to run towards the nearest shouts._

 _The masses of Atlesian knights were being pushed back by the Valeans and were so close to breaking that Weiss could see the eyes of Vale's knights between the whistling weapons._

 _She quickly flipped her head to her reinforcements crossing the river, gauging their distance, and turned back to the flanks bursting with Valeans._

 _As she turned back, an explosion blew back Atlesians and Valeans alike. As she focused on the spectacle, she realized that a blonde haired woman was standing at the epicenter of the explosion. Her hair was blazing with fire and her aura was shining like a star in the middle of the battlefield._

 _Distantly, the storm roared above them, and the the rain began to come down, but even the darkest clouds couldn't put the flames engulfing the woman out._

 _The Vale and Atlesian armies had been shocked to inaction by the expulsion of power in their midst, but the figure in the middle had recovered, and Weiss could tell that she was ready to bolt forward and decimate their now exposed flanks._

 _On pure muscle memory, Weiss flew forward, and unsheathed her rapier._

 _With the another pulse of her ice dust she summoned a wall of ice between their two forces, blanketing the battlefield with an icy chill, and earning her forces a reprieve._

 _She sighed in relief before she heard another explosion that rocked her makeshift barricade._

 _The young general hurriedly looked back to her forces crossing the river still so far away, and she turned to the tide of the battle on the bank. Her mind mentally noted how both her barricade and makeshift bridge were already crumbling to the inexorable forces of the river and the Valeans._

 _A distant crack of thunder passed through her ears, and the wind picked up._

 _Another explosion rocked the ice wall, and Weiss hung her head in shame, before she steeled her posture and grabbed the nearest knight that was just getting up from the explosion._

" _Knight!" She barked at him._

" _Yes!" He said quickly from her vice grip._

" _We are evacuating." He looked like he was about to question when she fixed him with a hard glare._

 _His eyes quickly flickered to the ice keeping the Valeans at bay before they swung back to her with a look of deference._

" _Yes my Lady!"_

 _She let him go and he scampered off, carrying the news. The other knights were finally getting up from the explosion and she raised her voice to a shout._

" _WE ARE LEAVING!"_

 _The knights looked confused for a second, but a gesture towards the river with her rapier, with a bit of glowing aura to reinforce her point, had them all nodding hurriedly and running off._

 _She sighed, and then started running towards the frozen portion of the river. Using glyphs for traction she got to her reinforcements in seconds, quickly reaching her second in command._

" _My Lady." Ren said as she skidded to a stop in front of him._

" _Change of plans, we're evacuating."_

 _He nodded quickly at the words, and she continued._

" _Get everyone out of here. Leave the minimum men to slow down the Valeans on the bridge. Everyone else has to run, we have lost the initiative, and we are unlikely to regain it today. Don't worry about the rear guard, we'll catch up."_

" _...'We', my Lady?"_

 _Distant explosions at the bank of the river had her scowling._

" _Ice dust may be the only thing that will slow them down now." She said grimly._

 _He nodded, and she turned to walk back into the fog..._

* * *

 _She stood on the icy bridge. Already water was washing over it, and she could see parts of the ice breaking away and flowing downstream._

 _Weiss sighed, and looked across to the fog that had once again overtaken the bank._

 _Dark shapes formed, and she tensed at the armored figures._

 _Then they turned into people, more specifically, fleeing knights of the Atlesian empire, and with the smallest fraction of her shoulders sagging, she relaxed, before taking a deep breath and began to yell instructions._

" _This way! Keep running!"_

 _Throngs of knights followed her orders, if only out of sheer fear of the coming army than anything else, and ran past her, while she kept her eyes on the fogbank, waiting for a different wave of troops._

 _Soon, Ren's rear guard came from the more secure side of the river, and took positions next to her._

 _After the flood of Atlesians had whittled down to a trickle, Weiss continued to wait on the frozen river. With every evacuee that passed, her hand gripped her rapier tightly, as her troops tensed ever more and more for the adversaries that were sure to come._

 _Finally, one man in tatters ran forward with neither a helmet nor weapons. He stopped at their line and they let him through._

 _Weiss talked to him softly._

" _How many are yet to come?"_

 _He was wheezing from the exertion, but he got out some quick words._

" _Any Atlesian on that side of the river is there because they asked to be."_

 _Weiss scowled. She had counted maybe a half of her forces that had been across the river had evacuated so far._

" _We need to go." She said quickly, gesturing for men to take the evacuee. More orders had the rear-guard retreating when she heard a distant explosion._

 _Her heart filled with dread, she looked to the fog to see a glowing figure rapidly approaching._

 _One of the knights, with heavy armor and a warhammer called out._

" _GO! I have this!" She shouted before rushing into battle._

" _Wait!" Weiss called before the knight had already dashed off._

 _She quickly followed, glyphs accelerating her to the battle, only to find the knight about to hammer the female figure into the ice._

 _With a mighty overhead swing, the weapon flew towards the figure's head. However, instead of caving in the figure's skull, the figure met the blow with raised armored gauntlets. The hammer slammed into the figure's arms with the force of a falling boulder, cracking the ice beneath them. The figure's aura seemed to pulse at the blow, before she exploded with power, sending the knight back and almost knocking Weiss over._

 _The blonde figure began to menacingly walk towards the knight, her every footstep burning into the ice._

 _The knight quickly grabbed her hammer before the figure dashed towards her for a haymaker._

 _Weiss had already cycled her cylinders to muster the last of her Ice dust, and threw up a quick icewall, freezing the figure's hand in mid-flight._

 _It may have been a hasty ice wall, with cracks and fissures, but was still sizeable, and it was functional, separating the golden figure from the two Atlesians._

 _As they stared at the ice wall, the only sound between them was the wind, which had died down, and despite the dark clouds, the rain and thunder had subsided for precious seconds, instead giving way to light snowfall._

 _Simoultaneously, the two Atlesians let out a breath both didn't realize they were holding, and looked at each other._

 _The knight was about to speak her mind when Weiss interrupted her._

" _We have to go."_

 _There was an explosion on the other side of the wall, causing more cracks in both the wall of ice protecting them, and the ice beneath their feet._

 _Weiss helped the knight to her feet and they began to run from the continuing explosions and the army behind her._

* * *

"We kept running. The Valeans overran our positions and we had to flee beyond our own camp to the edge of the valley."

Once her report had finished, she closed her eyes from their listless observation of the floor, and listened to the king's breathing.

He spoke, saying "Lady Schnee, your conduct on the field of battle was…" before pausing to take in air.

"...dissatisfactory."

Weiss sucked in air to intervene.

"My legion is _alive_ , and that is what counts, we may have lost the valley _now_ , but I can reclaim in the summer, Father, I-"

"ENOUGH!" He bellowed, his voice echoing through the room. "You have not only cost the empire land, and dust, but you have squandered the most precious resource of all. _Time_."

He grumbled. "Every second we waste is another second that those Valean rabble have to fortify, and to gain hope that they can win, every second they will fight _harder_ , and _YOU,_ " he said imperiously, " _You_ have given them _months_."

Weiss's shoulders slumped slightly. Her voice was nearly silent in the massive cathedral as she spoke.

"Am I to be relieved of my legion?"

The king was silent.

"No." Came the word dragged out of his mouth.

She forced her breathing to remain steady at the response.

"You have _failed_ , and you will be punished. Your legion will stay where it is now, leave it with a trusted lieutenant. But for the winter, you will be staying in the capitol, as an envoy. _If_ you behave, the legion may be yours when summer is upon us again. Now rise."

Weiss's face was neutral as she stood up again to look her king in the eye and nodded.

"Now." He said more neutrally. "Was there anything else you would care to mention?"

* * *

 _He was blonde, and handsome, even if his features were a bit boyish, and his face was in ecstasy as he drove into her. Her moans echoed across the tent as she dipped her head back in pleasure-_

* * *

"No."

Her face could have been carved from the walls of the cathedral it was so stony. The king nodded in dismissal and she stood, ignoring the pain in her knees from kneeling for so long.

The faunus chained to the throne meekly walked over to her and handed Weiss her cloak. She smiled at the girl, and got a quiet nod in response.

She spun on her heel and began to walk away.

The echoing of her boots echoed through the cathedral as her measured gait took her further and further away from the king.

* * *

Ozpin sipped his whiskey, before placing it down.

"So Jaune, after their lines broke, you and your forces chased them across the valley?"

Jaune shrugged. "Pretty much. We could have chased them farther but their camp was in a defensible area so we just took it and hunkered down. There was a small counterattack but that was...dealt with."

Jaune shivered. Images of the battlefield just a short walk away, with the bodies buried in the snow, came to the forefront of his mind.

He shook the thoughts out of his head and poured himself another glass of the amber fluid that he chugged.

"Alright, that's my story Oz" he said conversationally. "Now yours, what exactly are you _doing_ here? It's dangerous to be this close to the front."

Ozpin smiled mysteriously and reached into his coat. "Ah, well that's a story. See, I recently received a promotion."

Jaune looked perplexed. "Promotion? I thought you haven't been in the military in years?"

"Well, I'm not really in the military so much anymore…" Ozpin said as he smirked, before drawing out a worn and weathered cylinder with a bulb at the top. "...So much as I'm in charge of the military now." With a squeeze of a handle on the cylinder, the clockwork gears on the top whirred, and a black stick popped out of the cylinder, turning the small cylinder into a cane.

Jaune, in his inebriated state took a second to recognize the instrument, but as soon as his neurons connected, his eyes widened in disbelief.

He almost dropped his cup on the table in his haste to get out of his chair and kneel before the man opposite him.

Ozpin laughed slightly at the sight of the poor man trying to stay on his feet, before his face went to a slightly exasperated look.

"At ease, Jaune."

"I'm sorry sir-I mean _your Majesty_ " Jaune said quickly before sitting down. "I just...wow...you were elected king?"

Ozpin smiled as he spoke. "Yes, I've done quite a few favors for some high ranking people over the years, and it was long past time to call them in. Your family was _particularly_ helpful in getting my current position, so you have my thanks."

Jaune's face was gobsmacked as he tried to comprehend what was going on. Ozpin decided to use the silence to fill in the details.

"The council elected me only less than a week ago, and the coronation will be within the month."

Jaune had finally managed to get his thoughts together before speaking, and his eyes were sharp once more with realization at something that troubled him. Not at what had been said, but hadn't.

"Oz, you never answered my question. Why are you here? A king has people for this"

"A king can visit his troops can't he?"

"Well yeah…" Jaune started. "But...nevermind, I'm sure you have your reasons, your Majesty."

At those words, Ozpin sighed before his face seemed to age.

"A king can visit his troops. That is true." He started slowly. "What a king _cannot_ do is take the liberty to catch up old students. Or old friends."

He stopped for a second before whispering under his breath. "And I am not the king _yet_."

Jaune fell quiet and his face was conflicted.

Eventually, he ended up just pouring out more whiskey for both of them. They silently toasted each other and drained the glasses.

They stayed in a companionable silence, before Ozpin got up.

"I must leave." he said as he collapse the cane. "I have many people I need to meet, and should the council find out that I was out here, they'd have a fit."

Jaune got up and shook hands with him. A quick nod of understanding was exchanged before Ozpin grunted and sat up.

"Well, if that is all you have to report, I would best be going." The king turned to go to his horse.

Jaune thought to himself as he mulled over the words.

* * *

 _She was white haired, and beautiful, and though her face was often marred by a scowl, now it was screwed up in a fit of pleasure as she rode him. His grunting echoed in the small tent as pleasure lanced through his body-_

* * *

He shook his head free of the memories, and spoke.

"Actually, there was _one_ other thing, Professor."

The king stopped with the flap of the tent open, his head poking through.

"I have some information, but you must swear to me that you won't abuse it. Someone trusted me with this."

Ozpin pulled back from the edge of the tent to look at the blonde man, and nodded in acknowledgement

Jaune took in a breath to steady himself.

"The legion, it was led by a woman. One Lady Weiss Schnee. Second in line the Throne of Nidavellir."

Ozpin tilted his head at that. "We were aware of her, though words of her commanding a legion are new."

Jaune's face was conflicted, but he pressed on.

"We had a shortage of food and supplies. She came to negotiate the rationing of food between our two camps so we both would survive the winter."

"That's news for sure, but not exactly-"

"She came _personally_ to negotiate."

That got the soon-to-be king's attention, and his eyes narrowed in thought.

"You came to an agreement?" He finally said.

"50% split. Completely equitable."

"And she honored your deal?"

"When you were talking with her earlier, Ruby was probably snacking on some of that food in your very presence."

Ozpin was silent, before slow, careful words began to come out.

"I'll bring word to the council and update our files on her-"

Jaune's face shifted to one of pleading as he cut him off.

"Sir, she came to me in confidence and honored our deal. As a _friend_ I would ask that you leave her honor in her own court intact."

Oz smiled at his friend and put up a hand to placate.

"Don't worry Jaune, I won't tell them the details of what transpired, just the basics for our profiles."

But at those words, his smile turned into a slight smirk.

"However, regardless of the circumstances, a Schnee who honors her deals and cares for her people, _that_ is interesting."

Jaune nodded to him, and the concern eventually left his face.

"Is there anything else you can tell me about Lady Schnee?"

* * *

 _She rested on his cot, with her arm draped around him, her body, so small compared to his, burned with warmth as her steady breaths pressed against his neck…_

* * *

"That is between me and her, your Majesty."

Ozpin nodded, and left the tent, walking towards his horse

Jaune was about to turn back to his work when a look of realization and then concern swept over Jaune's face before he broke out into a run to follow the man in green. He arrived just as Ozpin was about to start off.

"Hey Oz!" he said to the new king with the uneasy breaths that came from running to catch up. "I forgot to ask, but would, uh...would you happen to know when the replacement general is arriving?"

"Sorry?" The man on the horse said before a look of realization came over him. "Oh right! I can't believe I almost forgot, I really _must_ get an assistant for these kinds of things."

He reached into a satchel to remove a scroll before handing the new parchment to the blonde man, saying "This should explain everything." As Jaune quickly unrolled it and began to read it out loud.

" _This decree establishes that current command of the Tenth Brigade of Vale falls to one...Jaune...Arc…_ "

Ozpin smiled and began to gallop off.

"Oz-I mean your Majesty! Wait! What's-" He trailed off as he read down the rest of the scroll, muttering the rest of the words.

"Wait... _falls to one Jaune Arc, as decreed by one...Ozpin Pine, 10th King of Vale._ "

He could no longer see the man in olive green in the dark of the night, but his perplexed eyes still tried to spot the new king as he left. He sighed, and muttered one comment into the dead of night.

"Goddammit Oz…"

* * *

 **A/N: This Author's Note is meant to address the elephant in the room. As you read, there was no smut in this chapter.**

 **The reason requires a bit of backstory. To explain, the first chapter of this story was meant to be a smutty one-shot. But a throwaway line at the end had people asking for a continuation to this, so I began to worldbuild for the story.**

 **However, it seemed from the feedback that I received that people are more invested in the story than the smut, which I could agree with. I'm having a lot of fun worldbuilding for this AU, and there's a lot of things in the pipeline I'm excited to write. But as I wrote more, frankly, I began to feel that shoe-horning in smut into every chapter would detract from the overall story.**

 **Some stories function well with a lot of smut due to having complex interpersonal relationships that are exacerbated by sex (especially stories like Tight Corners, and to a lesser extent the rest of my stories on my account, as examples).**

 **Some don't.**

 **This story is somewhere in between.**

 **So, I'm going for what I'm going to call the Game of Thrones approach. There will be explicit smut, (and I will make it as steamy as possible for the sake of professionalism) but only when I feel it makes a modicum of sense in the story, and otherwise, the plot is going to drive the story.**

 **That being said, these are set in medieval times before the internet, and there's very little else for them all to do besides each other, so it'll probably show up regularly.**

 **If you just like the story and don't care about the smut, chapters without are going to be labeled "** **Story contains explicit sexual content." when they don't have it, and "Chapter contains explicit sexual content** " **when they do, just so I don't have to add a disclaimer all the time.**

 **And in case it wasn't abundantly clear from this egregiously long Author's Note, yes, I will be continuing this fic for the foreseeable future.**

 **Please feel free to share your thoughts about this chapter, the fic, and this new direction I'm taking it via PM's and reviews, and I hope you all enjoy the story.**


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